Remnants of a Spartan
by playererror404
Summary: Noble Six thought her life was over, she thought she Reach was gonna be her last stand. She was wrong, now she's fighting monsters with super powered teenagers... On top of that she's younger and has no clue whats going on.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Last stand.

Noble Six was going to die, she knew she was going to die, the Spartan stood next to the canon she'd been using to protect the Pillar of Autum.

She was going to die and their was nothing she could do about it.

She was going to die and she was sure as hell gonna repay the favour.

She walked over to Emile's corpse, her friend had died fighting and so was she. Reaching out she took the Energy Sword from his dying hand. Igniting the blade she walked over to the edge of the platform and leaped down, walking towards a group of Grunts.

The short aliens didn't stand a chance, the blade swung through them in a second, striking them down in an instant. Deactivating the blade she grabbed a Needler, sending the purple crystals into a nearby group of elites, but this had a cost, they knew she was there now.

Lashing out the leaped at her, their guns firing and swords swinging. Six did not give a dam, she fought on, trying her hardest to stay alive, refusing to die, well for a while anyway.

She couldn't keep up, part of her knew she couldn't, she was a Spartan, but she wasn't immortal, her end did come.

It started once her shields fell, the plasma bursts where starting to hurt now, each one burning through the metal of her armour, bringing her to her knees as the pain became overwhelming. Pulling her damaged helmet of her head she stood up and clumsily grabbed the nearby abandoned assault rifle. Firing all around her, desperately trying to take out more elites, more covenant.

Until the sword hit her in the back, burning a hole straight through her, Six was forced to the ground, as the Elite turned her to strike the final blow Six made one last effort, punching the alien in the face, again and again. It may have brought her time if he was alone, but he wasn't, he had backup, and in the end, Noble Six, the last human on Reach, died, her armour batted and burned, her last breath on the surface of a dying planet.

Except it wasn't, something happened to that Spartan, something that doesn't always happen. She woke up, far away, far far far away from her home.

Why was not immediately obvious, but part of her knew the reason; Spartans never die, they're just missing in action.

…

Six was surprised to wake up smelling pollen, she was surprised to wake up at all if she was being honest, her decision to stay wasn't something she intended to wake up from.

Opening her eyes she looked around, her environment was weird, defiantly not Reach, it was a lush green forest. Confused she tried to stand up, and noticed several things that where drastically off.

She was far to short, The Spartan stood well over six foot before hand, but assuming the trees where the size of regular trees that would make her closer to five foot. Her armour was also gone, as was the under suit. Running her hand over her now exposed stomach she could see a burn wound... a burn wound in the exact same place the Elite had stabbed her in. A quick glance at her body revealed a lot of scars and bruises.

This was normal for any Spartan, it came with the territory, what was not normal was the fact the body seamed so much younger. Despite being in her early thirty's she appeared closer to sixteen.

 _Sitrep, I'm much younger, still sporting injury's but none of them fatal, in some weird forest. If this is the after life than the after life seams determined to confuse me._

Six now had to think of what to do next, staying where she was seamed like a bad idea, so setting of somewhere had to achieve something, she was about to head off, but she spotted something on the ground. A long black object with a heavy blade mounted at the top, A Gravity Hammer.

Smiling slightly the Spartan picked up the weapon. Feeling much safer now she had a heavy duty alien weapon in her hands the Spartan set off.

…

"Help, someone get me down form here!" Came a voice from somewhere near her, the Spartan decided to investigate. Pushing through a cluster of bushes she saw a teenage boy pinned up a tree via a red spear.

"Civilian, do you require assistance?" She asked, looking at the boy and taking in more details, He was blond, with blue eyes and wearing a black hoody and some crude looking white armor.

 _I doubt the Mjolnir crew need to worry about anything._

"Yes! Please help..." He started to say, before looking down at the Spartan.

"Okay, try to stay still" Stated the Spartan before taking a few steps back before charging up the tree, climbing up and balancing on a branch near the boy.

"I'm going to remove the spear, once that's gone brace for the landing, got it?" She asked, not worried about the fall, it wasn't far enough to get seriously hurt if you fell.

"Yeah... wait!" He cried as the Spartan freed the spear from the tree as the boy fell.

"Are you okay?" Asked the girl, looking down on the boy.

"Yeah... ow... that hurt." He muttered, before looking up in time to see the spartan jump down and land perfectly on the ground, before straightening up to look around.

"I'm Jaune." Said the boy, distracting the Spartan.

"Noble Six." Replied the Spartan, moving towards a bush wear she'd heard a disturbance, readying her hammer as she approached the bush, as something large and black charged out of it. Only just ducking in time the Spartan whirled around to look at the thing.

A black wolf like biped, and it was heading for the boy, who, credit where it was due, was reaching for his sword, although why he had a sword was a question for another day.

Unfortunately Jaune's performance wasn't that impressive, he slashed the thing clumsily across the chest, Six doubted he was even trained, he was at best self trained, and even then it didn't look like he'd done that much.

Her instincts took over, the Spartan charged in, her hammer powering up as she slammed it into the beasts jaw. The force of the hammer tore the beasts entire head of, sending it flying into space; she'd seen worse, but what really surprised her was the beast started to dissolve, breaking down into many black wisps that flew away in a wind that hadn't been their a few seconds ago.

"Are you okay?" She asked again, looking at the blond as he put his sword away.

"Yeah, that's the second time you've saved my skin." he said, not looking her straight in the eye, Six gathered her lack of armour, or any clothes really; was the reason.

"Its my job, now what's happening, why are you out here?"

"Wait you don't know, aren't you here for the exam?" He asked, clearly confused.

"What exam? More to the point why are you out here in the woods alone, don't you have any backup?" Asked the confused Spartan.

 _Why would you send someone out where the dangerous monsters are? This kid clearly isn't trained for combat, was it a mistake?_

"The Beacon entrance exam, wait, aren't you here for that?"

"No, what is Beacon?" The Spartan questioned as she heard something else moving around, powering up her hammer again, hoping the monsters weren't going to be that common; she wasn't sure how many charges the hammer had, lacking her helmet she had no access to her HUD.

"Its a school, it trains huntsmen and huntresses, you know what a huntresses is right?" The concerned boy said, looking over the girl, as if he was only just working out that the butt naked girl with a powerful alien weapon wasn't sane.

"In theory yes." Said the Spartan simply; someone who hunted stuff, like those black monsters.

"And you can come out of the bushes now." Six added, looking at the patch of bushes. Being surprised as a girl in a white dress and heal pushed her way out.

The new girl stood their for a second, took in the sight, and then turned and walked away.

"Weiss?" asked Jaune, but the girl was already gone.

"Who was that?" Six asked, realizing she had a lot of questions, the sooner she got a grasp on this situation the happier she would be.

"Another examine, her names Weiss." said another voice. Six looked behind her, another girl had entered the clearing, though this one didn't seam to be running away.

"And you are?"

"Phyrra Nikos." explained the girl, a quick glance over told Six she was far more capable the Jaune. She wore a bronze set of armour, her long red hair tied into a ponytail; her athletic frame showing she was ready for a fight, that and she seamed to have recovered the spear, based on the armour colour it was hers. Though Six did feel the need to question why she was wearing heals.

"Jaune why is this girl naked?" She asked in a low level whisper.

"No idea!"

"You two friends?"

"Er..." Started Juane before the red head answered.

"Yes, apologies for asking this, but who are you? I don't remember you from yesterday."

"Noble Six, and I woke up here about an hour ago." Answered the Spartan, determined to get some answers before something else came up.

"What is going on, Jaune said there was some kind of exam, can you explain this to me?"

"It's the Beacon Combat Academy initiation examination, our goal is to find a ruin in this forest and retrieve an artefact before heading back to the cliff." Pyrrha explained.

"Okay then, lets finish your exam and I'll figure out what to do next when where out of the forest." The Spartan declared, looking around.

"Any idea which way the temple is?"

The two just stared back at her blankly.

"Erm, where happy about the assistance, but aren't you worried, you said you woke up here, what happened before that...?"

"I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter, its not a problem right now; the beast infested forest however is an immediate problem, so lets get you two out of here; then I can worry about whats going on." The Spartan explained, about to set of before Jaune stopped her, handing something to her.

The Spartan was confused by this, until she looked the thing over, it was the boys hoody, while she'd been talking with Pyrrha he'd apparently removed it, realizing what it was for she pulled it over her head, it wasn't perfect, but slightly baggy was far better than nothing.

"Thanks, lets move out." The Spartan said, before heading out. The other two followed, but only after Pyrrha asked:

"Jaune why is Pumkin Peat on your hoody?"

"It was a prize, besides its really comfy." The boy retorted, having no problem with the design, and judging by her lack of reaction, neither did Six.

…

"Think it's in here?" Asked Jaune, looking into the deep cave the trio had just found.

"I'm not sure..." Muttered Pyrrha, looking worriedly at the painting outside the cave.

"I agree; however we've been looking for an hour, this is the best place we've found so far, however it looks dangerous; we should handle this with caution." The Spartan muttered, doing some metal jiggery in her head.

"Okay, here's my suggestion, Pyrrha goes first; Jaune goes in the middle and I'll take the rear, that way we'll be going in in order of best defense and offense." The Spartan explained, though she neglected to mention she was prioritizing defense, Jaune had no offense skill, but hopefully that wouldn't matter.

The other two agreed; so they entered the cave, With Jaune holding an improvised flaming torch, so at least he knew what he was doing in some aspects at least.

Eventually they came across something glowing and yellow.

"Think this is it?" Asked Jaune. Six was surprised.

"You don't know what your looking for?"

"Ozpin wasn't very clear." Explained Pyrrha, straining her eyes to look at the glowing thing properly.

"This is it! I'm sure!" Jaune exclaimed; moving ahead and trying to grab the yellow thing.

"Jaune don't!" Cried Pyrrha, trying to stop him, but it was to late.

The thing had woken up.

 _If this is the artifact than this Ozpin guy is a sadist._

The glowing yellow thing was not the artifact, this was another monster, and this one was much larger, about on scale with a scarab tank, and by the look of it it was just as dangerous. Roughly the shape of a scorpion the Death Stalker was insanely powerful.

"We need to get out of here!" Yelled the Spartan, sprinting back through the cave, her training allowing her to block the pain coming from her feet as she was tearing her feet apart on the sharp rock floor of the cave she'd carefully navigated on the way in.

The other two where following her as fast as they could, Six was impressed Pyrrha could keep up with her while wearing heels.

"What are we going to do!" Screamed Jaune.

"We either need to get away or take it out." The Spartan responded, turning her head around to look at the creature, it was very heavily armored, the Gravity Hammer might be able to crack the bone plating, but their was no real way of telling, and even then what if this thing was tougher than that.

"Its a Death Stalker, I suggest we run, we may be able to out pace it!" Pyrrha responded, Six nodded and speed up, the ground was much softer; meaning she could move faster without causing more damage to her feet, even if her they where causing her to lose a lot of blood from the multiple cuts.

Eventually the trio broke out of the forest into a more open area. Six saw more people, a girl wearing black and a red cape; A blond bombshell, a girl with long black hair, an orange haired girl with some kind of grenade launcher on her back and man wearing green with a magenta streak in his hair.

Looking behind her Six saw the pair still following her, and luckily the Death Stalker couldn't be heard, so hopefully it wasn't still following them.

The blond looked angry as the girl in the cape pointed up at something, looking up Six saw the girl in white from earlier hanging onto the talon of a giant bird.

"Versatile bunch these creatures." Six muttered under her breath, before looking towards the new group, they where each holding chess pieces in their hands, so presumably they where the artefacts they'd been sent for; and she could see more of them on the pedestals behind them.

"Jaune, Pyrrha; the artefacts are over their, get one and lets get out of here." The Spartan said, gesturing toward the artefacts.

The two did that as the white haired girls grip finally failed her. Spotting this Six sprinted towards her, leaping into the air and catching her before she hit the ground.

"You okay?" The girl nodded, The Spartan let out a small smile before she got body slammed out of the way by the girl in the cape.

"Weiss! Why didn't you let go!" Cried Ruby, looking at her with a mixture of relief and frustration.

"It was insane! As was the entire plan!" The girl called Weiss responded angrily.

"Well it worked didn't it!" Cried the other girl indignantly.

"It was insane, if you had listened to me..." Realising this was not helping and unlikely to stop soon Six intervened.

"You two, this is not the place, your both okay and arguing is not a priority, that birds coming back, we should get out of here, grab an artefact and lets get to safety." This seamed to work, while Weiss still looked angry she did get up and the pair returned to the group, the Spartan following them.

"Everyone got an artefact?" inquired the Spartan. After a round of nods Six was about to lead them out, until the bird came back.

Specifically it swooped down and sent a storm of feathers at the group, most of them got away with getting hit, the two who didn't was Six and Cape girl; Cape girl getting pinned in place by a feather through the cloak, Six was less lucky.

Six suffered a feather through her right arm, all the way through, she cried out in pain as blood poured out the wound, in agony the Spartan tried to move towards Cape girl to help, but she didn't need too. The bird was on its way back, but it was halted by Weiss; who somehow froze the thing in place. Over the pain Six couldn't hear what was said, but the two seamed willing to work together now at least.

Six found herself surrounded by the rest of the group, all of whom looked worried at the injury, Six didn't blame them; it was pretty grizzly, but she'd seen worse and knew what needed to be done, even if she didn't have any omni gel.

"This is bad, but I can handle this, can anyone create controlled heat?" Six may not have believed this possible moments ago, but a girl in a white dress freezing a giant bird had opened her mind and she was willing to ask.

"I can, but why do you need it?" Asked Weiss, the rotary section in her rapier spinning.

"You need to cauterise the wound, I can't move with this in my arm and I'll bleed out if I don't seal it, bandages wont stop that amount of blood." Six explained, getting a grip on the feather, the others looked shocked.

"That's crazy." The girl with the bow and black hair said, looking blankly at the Spartan.

"I can't leave this in and I'll bleed out if it isn't sealed, cauterising is faster and more effective than bleeding out."

"But that's gonna really hurt!" Exclaimed the orange hired girl.

"I can take it, Wiess, get ready; I'm pulling it out."

Before anyone could stop her she yanked and tore the feather out, the blood flow was worse and luckily for Six Wiess did as she asked and did apply the burning blade to her skin, the others where shocked as Six gritted her teeth as the burning pain shot through her arm, most would have cried out, but she was trained for it, she could handle it; she was a Spartan...

… A Spartan with one broken arm in immense pain but still a Spartan.

"Okay, lets get the hell out of here; move out people." The Spartan declared, picking up her Gravity hammer; knowing that with one usable arm the feedback would break her arm after one use, she really didn't want two unusable arms.

So the group set of, The cape girl (Apparently called Ruby) soon over took the injured Spartan, Six didn't mind, they weren't under attack so they should be fine, until they reached the mountain fortress.

That was when their foes caught up with them, The Death Stalker and Nevermore bird. The group prepared to fight.

Six was honestly impressed with what she saw; she'd pulled of some impressive feats herself, but this group of teenagers, she was feeling somewhat outclassed, especially seeing as she couldn't really fight.

It honestly was impressive to see, the group had an amazing sense of coordination and agility, they could jump higher and further than Six though possible unaided.

They ran across the an ancient bridge, those with guns providing covering fire to keep the Death Stalker back, until the Nevermore slammed into the pathway they where on separating Jaune and Nora from the group, however that didn't stop them; Nora improvised a strategy with her weapon, a hammer grenade launcher hybrid to get the pair back across,

Eventually the group was separated and seemed to decide to split their efforts. Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang took the Nevermore, using a tower as a base of operations, while Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha and Ren took the Death Stalker, Six making a dive of the bridge to help Jaune's group, her weapon wasn't ranged; so it made sense for her to fight the ground based enemy.

Narrowly dodging the beast's pincers Six ran to a more secure area, watching impressed as Ren leaped onto the tale and fired away at the stinger.

"That Tail is it's main weapon, we need to get rid of it..." Muttered the Spartan before crying: "Nora Help me!" The Spartan yelled, charging behind the creature, activating her Hammer and preparing for the pain that was coming.

Nora having got the idea followed Six's lead, running around to the other side of the scorpion, the pair leaped at the same time and swung their hammers in sync, slamming into the beasts tail and blowing the tail of, sending it flying and the scorpion rearing in pain.

The scorpion wasn't the only one; the Spartan had been right, that had really hurt, and judging by the snapping noise had done some serious damage.

Swearing loudly the Spartan collapsed, wanting to clutch her injured arm, but couldn't, and somehow the Scorpion knew, it turned around and raised a pincer to strike.

This could have been the end for Six, but Jaune leaped in at the last second, blocking the mighty pincer with his shield, forcing him back a few feet, but Six was uninjured, not wasting the opportunity Six ran as best as she could, getting out of the combat area, she was a liability now.

Six turned around, slumped against a tree, trying to deal with the pain; until life chose to throw more pain her way.

Specifically a giant snake.

 _Argh! More Grimm! What did I do to deserve this!_

Six jumped out of the way of the snakes titanic jaw, whirling around to size her opponent up. It was about twenty feat long, its scales turning from black to white as it travelled down to another head.

 _Okay, what do I have to work with, my legs, right... I can't take this thing out alone, but the others have a fight going on, I can't afford to make this worse, I can by time, that will give them a chance to finish their fight._

Her barely formed plan in mind Six began a game of leaping around like a mad woman. Constantly forced to jump around and perform some embarrassing mid air moves to avoid the snakes jaws, each one trying to kill the Spartan, what he didn't know, that Six knew full well; was this:

 _Spartans never die!_

Six was always ahead of the snake, diving out of the way, sometimes only just being able to avoid being crushed by the massive fangs.

"Nora Nail it!" Cried Jaune, this and the resulting explosion mingled with a cry of pain distracted the Spartan for a split second; a split second she didn't have.

The snake crushed her legs in its jaws, the resulting crunch snapped both her thigh bones, shattering them and Six finally cried out in pain.

"ARGGGHHH!" The Spartan yelled as her two remaining limbs broke, the snake, realising how injured its prey was, proceeded to throw the Spartan up in the air, its gaping maw opened, like a black hole in the world, Six knew that it was over, she couldn't dodge that, her body was too broken, it was over for her, she'd woken up somewhere else and extended her life by maybe 2 hours.

 _Well, this seams like a waste._

And that was it.

The end.

Really.

Except it wasn't, at almost literally the last second a streak of red shot out of the air and stuck through Jaune's Hoodie, forcing the confused Spartan off course, sending her into a tree, not into the snakes mouth.

Looking up Six saw Jaune's group running to help, Ren firing with both his machine pistols, Nora unloading grenades on the thing, Pyrrha throwing her shield to strike the creature in its face, Jaune even got a few good swings in on the snakes underbelly.

This sight reminded Six of another group she'd barley known, a group who had her back, even if it wasn't for very long, this felt the same, this caused the Spartan to let out a small smile, the last thing she did before blacking out.

…

"Hello dear, I am Professor Ozpin; what is your name? You aren't a student and you weren't part of the imitation group." Six was surprised to hear this, mainly because she was sure she was dead... Again.

A few seconds to gain her bearings told her this was stupid, she was in pain yes, but defiantly not dead, a quick attempt to move her limbs confirmed to her that they were in casts.

Looking to her left she saw the speaker, an oldish looking man, drinking from a mug of something he was looking at her with a polity interested expression.

After waiting a second Six decided to answer his question.

"Noble Six." She said dryly.

"That's an interesting name you have their, is their anything else to your name Miss Six?" Looking at him seriously the Spartan decided their was no harm in giving him her full name.

"Spartan-B312, Noble Six"

"Hmmm." He said, looking at her, looking interested but with a hint of distrust seeping into his voice.

"You can doubt it but its my name."

"Oh its not that, its more I'm now wondering where you came from." The Spartan decided to play for time, she couldn't figure out what this guys deal was; but she figured she could by time to figure it out.

"My mother; isn't that where everyone comes from?" Cheek wasn't something the Spartan was used to using, so it came out stiff and awkward.

"Well yes, but I'm more interested in how you came to wake up in the middle of the Emerald Forest just as the exam started, you weren't their before, its like you just showed up, but that's impossible of course." Six stared hard at the man.

"What do you want to know, its clear you know something." The Spartan said, dropping all pretence.

"I want to know who you are and how you got here, all I can say is that an anomaly was detected around the forest as the exam started and you showed up naked in the middle of it, literally, I have it on camera." He said, messing around with a tablet for a second.

"Have a look, I think you'll find it fascinating." He said, handing Six the tablet. Curious Six watched a seemingly empty area of forest; amazed as a glow of yellow light appeared above the ground until she fell out of it and passed out on the ground.

"Miss Six, do you have any idea on how that happened, this is brand new to me." He said, smiling, Six thought for a second, he wasn't going to believe it, but it couldn't hurt to try telling him.

"I died fighting a war against an alien alliance intent on exterminating all of humanity; I was a commando and I died due to multiple plasma wounds and a stab through the chest with an energy sword." Ozpin looked deep into her eyes, before smiling.

"Very well Miss Six, so what do you plan to do next." Six balked, this was not what she expected.

"What do you mean Sir?" She said on instinct, the shock kicking in her military training unintentionally.

"Well what do plan to do now, you don't seam to have anywhere to go do you." The Spartan shook her head.

"That is true, to be honest Sir I have no idea." Ozpin nodded, the look on his face telling her he knew that was going to be her answer.

"Well I would like to offer a preposition Miss Six."

"I'm listening." The Spartan said Cautiously,

"I would like to offer you a place in my school, you completed the entrance exam in all the critical aspects and it would give you a place to live, food and teach you about this world." Six thought for a second, this seamed perfect, but her paranoia flared up.

"Why would you offer me this? it doesn't make sense; you know nothing about me, why would you invite me into your school?"

"Simple; if your a trouble maker I'd rather you be where I can keep an eye on you, and secondly, you need help, I'm a huntsman, its my job to help people." Six sat their for a second, she was probably making a mistake, she didn't know anywhere near enough about this place to make a situation, but she had to make a decision; so she elected to go with:

"Mr Ozpin Sir, I would be happy to except."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Why am I the first person to do this?

Six spent the next week in hospital, the Spartan was amazed at the recovery speed; the schools Nurse used her 'Semblance' to heal the Spartan faster than was normally possible.

Six was determined not to be helpless in this new world and set about discovering the basics of this world before her classes started the next Monday, so dressed in the schools uniform she set out for the library; Six personally was very happy to have a uniform again, even if this was drastically different to what she used to wear. (Six knew military uniform and mini skirts weren't a typical part of them, then again this wasn't a military uniform, it was a skirt)

Stepping into the libary Six was amazed to see the amount of physical books; Six didn't get to see many physical books, too flammable thus most of them got burned when the Covenant showed up.

Six pulled a book called 'Aura and Semblance; a Huntsman's guide' off the shelf and began to read.

The humans on this planet were not the same as the ones she knew and formerly was. These humans had a natural energy shield and super powers built in. For Six to have ability's like the one's in the book she would need a suit of armor more expensive than a star ship to get anything close to these ability's.

Six knew she wasn't able to do these things, the Nurse had confirmed it; she'd tried to activate Six's Aura to speed up the healing process and had been very surprised when she couldn't.

Apparently it wasn't unheard of to happen for a human not to be able to manifest one (Various things like trauma and shock could prevent one from being able to form) but it was rare and several people had tried to warn Six against becoming a huntresses due to the danger, Six had ignored all of the warnings.

"I'm okay to fight like this, I've been doing it most of my life; I don't feel the need to stop now."

The Spartan also knew that without an Aura she wouldn't be able to produce a semblance but the Spartan wasn't worried; again she'd been doing it for years, that wasn't a problem. The reason she was researching it was because her opponents would have them, and knowing how they worked might give her an edge.

After about an hour of reading Six was distracted by something; a group of first years hassling another student over something. Six stopped reading, she was hardly trained to ignore a problem.

Quietly slipping out of her chair she walked over to the group to listen in on what was being said.

"Look at this freak, told you they where real!" Said the man who appeared to be the leader of the group, tugging hard on the girls ears, her long brown rabbit ears.

 _Okay, never seen that before._

"Stop, please!" The girl said quietly, as if polity asking ever stopped bully's.

"Why is a freak like you even here!" one of the group cried as the whole group quickly piled into abusing the rabbit girl. A familiar anger bubbled in the Spartan, one she knew well, but these creatures were barley more than Grunts.

"Excuse me." She said, gently tapping one of the grunts on the shoulder, as he turned around Six decked him, sending him sprawling to the floor. Before his friends had a chance to react she swung round and slammed her fists into the the other two grunts. Stopping to look at the leader.

...

Cardin Winchester was very confused, a girl who would be very cute if not for the look of pure hatred on her face; had just knocked out his team for no reason.

"Let. Her. Go." The girl said calmly, looking straight at the leader, possibly a Jackal.

"Look, babe." He said, confident he could work this situation out with her.

...

No regret, no realization, not a sliver of guilt, Six had no mercy.

Leaping across the Rabbit girl Six drove a kick into the Jackal's gut's, driving another fist into his face, her opponent staggered, but apparently realized what was happening he recovered fast.

He raised his own fists, striking out, but he clearly used a weapon more than his fists as Six was easily able to catch the fist, clutching it tighter, before catching the other fist, not letting go of the fists Six slammed her knee repeatedly into his groin, before pulling her head back and headbutting the Jackal in his face.

Dazed he was in no shape to stop her from shoving him to the ground and stomping on his chest.

" **If I ever see you pull something like that again I will hurt you worse than I have now, am I understood?"** The dazed thing stared at her blankly, trying to regain focus.

Disgusted Six kicked him in the guts and turned to the Rabbit girl. Looking down at her she reached out her hand.

"Are you okay?" The girl sat their on the floor for a second, her eyes small and clearly scared of the display the Spartan had just put on.

 _Dammit, I need Jorge!_

The girl did eventually take the Spartan's hand.

"You, you didn't have to..." She started to say, but Six stopped her.

"Don't say that, yes I did; I know how these things go and I was not going to put up with it again." The Spartan bluntly stated.

The rabbit girl was confused for a second, before smiling and saying:

"Velvet Scarlatina."

"Noble Six."

Velvet stared at the strange girl.

"Really?" She asked, trying to see any hint of irony.

"Yes."

"Oh... erm, that's a really... Unique...? Name you have." The blushing Rabbit girl blurted.

"Its fine, though I have to ask you something."

"Really? What is it!" Velvet asking, keen to make it up to the Spartan.

"What are you?" Velvet stared blankly at her for a second, so Six elaborated:

"My memory's a bit scrambled at the moment, I have a lot of blank spots, I don't mean to be rude."

"Oh, well I'm a Faunus; there's a lot of us around, as are people like them." Velvet explained, looking down at the unconscious bully. Six scowled at the unconscious scum.

"That's kind of sick."

Velvet simply shrugged.

"Eh, what can you do?"

"Not put up with their crap?"

"I could, but I don't like methods like yours..." Six's eyes where still hard.

"Well if you want, though in my experience not doing anything doesn't stop anything."

Six then turned around and walked back to her book, ignoring the look on the Rabbit girls face.

…

"Okay beauty, lets get you working again." Six said to herself and her Gravity hammer.

Spreading her tools around the Spartan set to work, stripping components and carefully laying them out in front of her. The alien tech was not compatible with most of Remnants tech; so if she was going to make it work in this world substantial changes where going to be required.

The main thing Six needed to do was replace the power core with a more Remnant friendly power supply and she was also going to require a way of telling how much power it still had. Hence why she'd payed a trip to the schools armory/part shop to collect the parts she was going to need.

About an hour into her endeavors someone walked up behind her and slapped her back. The Spartan span round, getting ready for a fight, her 'Opponent' smiled.

"I'm not here to fight you, I just wanted to say thanks for helping my gal." Six tilted her head.

"I'm on Velvet's team, actually I'm its leader; Coco Adel"

"Noble Six." The Spartan said as her face hardened.

"Whats wrong, you look like you just swallowed a lemon or something."

"Why was I the one standing up for her?"

"..."

"You said you where her leader, why was I the one stopping that man from hurting her?" Six said, trying to stare the older girl down.

"One: I wasn't there, and Two: She doesn't tell us anything, I only found out because I walked in on her bandaging her ear." This caused Six's face to soften slightly.

"Why? Does she not trust you enough to tell you what was happening to her?"

"It's not trust, she doesn't want to worry us, especially me... Stupid girl, why did it have to be you?" Coco said, Six's face relaxed.

"I understand, whats going to happen in the future after this?" She asked, hoping she was guessing the answer correctly.

"Oh believe me, she's going to tell us in the future, anyway I just wanted to say thanks to you for helping out my friend." Six let out a small smile.

"No problem, glad I could be their for someone..."

Coco noticed the expression of the girl change, but before she could inquire further:

"So, how did you know it was me?"

Coco snorted.

"Seriously? Lavender hair? Orange eyes? More scars that Fox? You stand out." Six nodded, wondering again why her hair was the color of her old armor.

"So, what you building?" Coco asked, looking down at Six's project.

"A HUD." Six Answered, returning to her work.

"Oh, Okay; well I'll leave you to it." She said, messing with the Spartans hair as she left.

Six stared at her for a second as she left, watching her hips sway. But then she was gone, and Six was able to get back to work.

…

"Welcome to Combat Class, as you can see we have a late arrival, She goes by Noble Six, so on with today's lesson." Six couldn't help but grin, this was the kind of lesson she could appreciate. Direct and to the point; it was almost like being back on Reach.

"Today we're going to be partaking in one on one spars, any volunteers?" Glynda said, looking around the room.

Six stuck her hand in the air, she needed experience fighting people with auras and semblances.

"Okay, Miss Six and Miss Valkyrie; please prepare for you match." Said Professor Goodwitch; pointing towards the changing room.

Once changed the pair re entered the room; Nora wearing the outfit Six had seen in the forest.

"Er... you sure your ready?" Nora asked, looking at Six, who hadn't done anything other than put on an ammo belt and a golden visor over her eyes.

"Yes."

"Okay then..." Nora said, not looking to sure about that.

The two opponents faced each other, both with their hammers ready.

"Match begins in three, two, one... yes Miss Nikos?" Glynda Goodwitch asked looking at the red head who'd stuck her hand up.

"Six's Aura gauge appears to be glitching out; can you safely monitor it?"

"Miss Six's aura gauge is working fine. You two go now." Six didn't need more incentive.

The pair charged at each other, hammers swinging, a clash of metal on metal.

 _Nora Valkyrie; uses a hammer grenade launcher combo, you're vulnerable to the explosions, keep it within melee range so she can't use the projectiles._

Six stayed close, swinging at her opponent, who sadly was keeping up the pace easily; ducking each swing and always ready with a counter to anything Six used.

 _Okay, this isn't going anywhere, they're going to find out eventually, might as well show of what a Gravity hammer can do._

Six leaped back, swinging the hammer around and bringing it down on the ground; the shock wave sent Nora flying back and crashing into the wall.

"And Miss Valkyrie's Aura is in the red, this means the match is over, victory goes to Six."

Their was a polite round of applause from the crowd.

"Miss Six, if you wish to keep fighting your welcome to."

Six nodded, and so the lesson went on.

Six was did well, she didn't lose a single fight, until Pyrrha was her opponent.

The match started fine, But Six realised something was off. No matter how she swung the hammer Pyrrha was always capable of dodging; it wasn't until a full force low swing that she realised what was happening.

 _Shes moving my hammer; cleaver, I can't hit her with this, but how strong is she?_

Six swung her hammer around, the gravity generator now pointing away from Pyrrha; the metal blade now being the primary weapon. Closing in Six swung, waiting for the second she was going to lose control.

The second she felt it she activated the Gravity genorator, causing it to resist Pyrrha's semblance and slam into her; who was only just capable of blocking it in time.

Confident with her strategy Six went for another swing; but it didn't work again, Pyrrha did her thing and knowing what was coming, put far more force behind it and sending the hammer out of Six's hands.

Changing tactics in a second Six went into hand to hand combat, sending a punch at Pyrrha's head, which she couldn't dodge; her fist made impact and staggered her; but for her second swing the red head was ready, bringing her shield up to block Six's punch.

The pain this caused distracted the Spartan for a second she didn't have. Pyrrha slammed her shield into Six and sent her sprawling on the ground.

"I surrender." The Spartan said. Smiling Pyrrha offered her a hand up of the floor.

"That was a good match." The red head said. The Spartan nodded, but it was an insincere gesture.

 _You're a Spartan, that should have been nothing, how did a teenager get one over on you? Its pathetic; its a good thing you lost the armor, you don't deserve to wear it!_

Fuming internally Six sat down in her chair and continued to watch the rest of the matches, taking notes on the fighters; while scribbling some rough designs down.

…

A Covenant ship? What was she doing back on one of those?

 _Wait who was that!_

"... The only way of this slag heap is gravity."

 _How was he! he died on the ship!_

"That was the good news, bad news is the timers fried; I'm going to have to fire it manually"

 _This was familiar, oh no..._

"We all make it sooner or later; better get going Six, they're gonna need you down their."

"Listen, Reach has been good to me, time for me to return the favor, don't deny me this."

 _It wasn't going to work, it wouldn't stop the fleet._

"Promises to make it count."

 _I couldn't, it would fail like last time._

Now she was running, the elevators where right there...

"Where does he get of calling a demolition priority one..."

The glow of purple struck the figure ahead of her, the body lifeless as it fell.

 _I don't want to..._

A Pelican, Six was looking up at one, the Scarab looming overhead.

"Your on your own Nobel, Carter out."

 _Stop it!_

A different crash, up on the ledge.

"I'm ready! Howbout you!"

The blade struck again.

 _No! I cant! Not again! Stop it!_

Six awoke in a gasp, cold sweet plastered to her skin, breathing heavily.

 _Out! I need to get out!_

Leaping up from the floor the ex Spartan ran hard and fast out of the school, looking around; she ran to a tree, punching it as hard as she could, driving her fists into the tree over and over again.

 _Block it out, block it out! You can deal with it! They did their duty, they did their duty!_

" **They did their duty!"**

"Hard time sleeping Miss Six?" Six span around to see Professor Ozpin looking at her.

"No Sir." She said saluting.

"We're not in Atlas Miss Six."

Confused Six realized where her hand was.

"Sorry Sir."

"Its not a problem, though one of my students being out at four in the morning abusing a tree in their night attire is a bit of a concern."

"Sorry Sir."

"Six, what was your dream about?"

"What do you mean Sir?" The Spartan asked.

"Six you where talking in your sleep; who is Carter."

Six scowled at him.

"No one."

"Six don't lie to me; who is he?" Six looked at him, wondering what to say.

"He lead the team I was a part of." She said, finally settling on the truth.

"Lead?"

"Yes, he was the Commander of my team back home."

"Was?"

"Hes dead; Killed in action." Six said blankly, her face hardening.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"He did his duty."

 _Yeah, protecting your failing ass._

"Is that what you where dreaming about? The... incident?" Six nodded.

"That must have been painful for you; to see his death again."

"I'm a Spartan, I can handle it." Six Said, turning away from the professor.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes Sir I believe so; he wasn't the only one."

"Only one? Six, how many people have you seen die?"

Scowling Six looked at him.

"Why should I tell you?"

"You don't have too, but I'm your Headmaster, it's my job to look after my students; and you clearly need help."

"I'm fine Sir."

"I'm not convinced; Six, you lost people close to you; didn't you."

Six hesitated, not knowing what to say, her face unchanging even if her mind was going berserk.

"We only knew each other for few days; they were good soldiers."

 _Why do I tell him everything? What is it with him!_

"Soldiers...? Six where you in a war?"

"Yes, they would have wiped everything out, they did; they got Reach, I know they did; they got Noble team."

"Six, you need to talk to someone about this."

"No I don't, it doesn't matter, I'm fine, as long as I can fight I can keep going." Deciding to end the conversation there the Spartan set of back to her room.

"Goodnight Sir."

Ozpin watched as the girl left, wondering if she'd realized she was crying the entire time.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: A girls first:

Six sat on a bench, waiting for the airship headed down to Vale to arrive; she needed supplies she couldn't get at Beacon. She glanced down at the list she'd scrawled out:

 _Combat boots_

 _Tank tops_

 _Cargo trousers_

 _Gloves_

 _Undergarments_

 _Non magnetic metal_

 _Straps_

 _Foam_

 _Electronic components._

 _Hopefully with this stuff I can put together a proper combat suit; I'm wasting far to much time washing my available clothing; this must be rectified._

"Yo Six!" The Spartan started, looking around at the speaker.

"Miss Adel."

"Dammit Six don't call me that, makes me feel old." The older girl said, smiling as she approached the Spartan.

Six looked at her, wondering how she kept running into the beret wearing girl, it was becoming alarmingly frequent ever since she'd offered her thanks for helping Velvet.

"I will try to remember that."

"See that you do! Anyway; what are you dong on the Airship, planing a trip out?" Coco asked, happy that the younger girl was finally leaving the school; or just going outside, she was far to pale to be healthy.

"Yes, I need to collect these items." The Spartan replied, holding her list up for the older girl to look at.

"Boots, trousers, hey I know the best places for getting stuff like this; want me to show you?"

"Don't you have your own objectives?" The confused Spartan asked.

"Eh, not really, I was just going to look around those places anyway, felt like browsing; so I'll be doing what I came for and helping you, besides its more fun to shop with friends!" The beret girl said; like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I don't understand, how is it fun to browse randomly?" Six asked as Coco giggled.

"Wow Six you do not get out enough do you? Seriously when was the last time you had fun?"

"The last time I was in the sparing ring, It was quite fun to send Cardin up into the ceiling."

"Uh huh, right..." Coco trailed of because the air ship was landing now. The pair then boarded and sat down to get ready to head out.

…

"So Six, looking for any particular style or just browsing?" Coco asked once inside the store.

"Not really, all I require is something durable; anything else is irrelevant." Six said, walking over to the rack and looking at the shirts on sale.

"That's really vague, do you even know your size?" She asked, looking as Six took shirts clearly the wrong size of the rack.

The Spartan couldn't answer; she basically lived in her armor and her Beacon uniforms had been given to her; she'd never had the chance to figure it out.

"Come on, lets get you measured." Coco said, dragging the Spartan away from the racks and to the changing rooms.

"Get your shirt off, I need to measure you properly."

Complying Six pulled the uniform of and stood their, letting the older girl wrap the tape measure around her at specific points to get her Sizes down.

"Geeze girl what happened to you?" Coco asked, looking at the numerous scars adorning Six's Torso, especially the final plasma burn scar; the last strike that had ended her life on Reach.

"I fight, its natural I'd pick up a few injurys." Six stated blankly.

"Yeah I guess, and dam girl you're stressed, hang on." Coco lent in close, inspecting the Spartans face.

"Six how much sleep are you getting?" She asked, starring intently at the younger girls face.

"Enough." The Spartan replied, she wasn't lying, her training aloud her to stay awake for long stretches with minimal sleep.

"You sure? Cause you've got bags the size of my purse under your eyes and that's not a good thing; and your really tense, you sure your sleeping okay?"

"Yes." She said, ignoring what had been happening every night.

"Uh huh, look Six, you need a break, your running yourself ragged."

"Its fine, I'm still standing."

"And taking a break will let you stand longer, come on where having a Spa day!" She declared, grabbing Six by the arm.

"Wait, I still need..."

"It's the weekend, we can finish up tomorrow, now come on, Spa, now, you need it." Six considered arguing, but it wasn't worth it, this was a minor delay, nothing more.

…

"Told you it was good for you." Coco said, playfully jabbing the Spartan in the ribs. Six for her part just looked back; no clear expression on her face.

Six was conflicted, she defiantly felt better; the work those people had done on her muscles and back was amazing, but she didn't get the point of the stuff on her fingers; well she got that it was for aesthetics, but she didn't get why **She** needed it; she didn't care; she'd only let them because Coco insisted.

She was a fighter, why would she care about her skin; if things went to plan she'd be spending all of her time inside her helmet again anyway. (Six had a feeling the bag full of cosmetics Coco had insisted on buying for her was never going to be used.) Same thing went to her hair, she could accept it looked good, but she saw no need to keep it up; so long as it didn't put people of by looking too messy it would be fine.

Six's opinions on her new look where interrupted when they reached the hotel they'd be staying at, apparently one of Coco's Aunts ran it and they where able to get rooms for free. Though Six wasn't a fan of the bed, it was far too soft, she was gonna drown if she slept in the thing so she elected to take the carpeting instead.

As expect Six didn't sleep well that night, but at least she got some, it was better than her worse nights, so all in all it was a good night and true to her word the next day she was back out with Coco looking for clothing.

"So can I see your list again?" Six nodded, pulling the slip out and handing it to the older girl.

"Why do you need non magnetic metal?"

"I suspect Pyrrha Niko's semblance gives her some form of control over magnetism, I don't want my own armor being used against me." Six explained.

"Well that's fair, well come on; lets get you sorted on all the boring stuff before we find the fun stuff." Unsure what the older girl considered boring as they went towards a metal works store.

After about three hours of shopping Six had everything on the list except for one.

"Undergarments? Why do you need them, your old ones worn out or something?"

"No, its more because I only have three pairs; its a waste of time constantly washing them every few days." Six explained; the number did make sense to her (Three uniforms three sets of underwear) but it was getting frustrating to be wasting time that could be going to other more profitable uses.

"Then why didn't you bring more with you then? You've got to have more at home."

 _That's true, but my homes also a ball of molten glass; plus I spent so long in my armor that I wore my body suit more than anything else._

"I did, but I got here by waking up naked in the Emerald Forest; so even if it wasn't burned to oblivion I doubt I could find it again anyway."

Coco was shocked to hear this, she wanted to ask more but decided against it; she was worried for the younger girl, but having her home destroyed probably explained most of her odd habits; although their was one thing she did want to know.

"Why where you naked in the middle of the forest!?" Coco asked, drawing more attention than she intended; but Six seamed unfazed.

"I have no idea, in all honesty I thought I was dead; the last thing I remember was... them." Six said, letting her mind wander; a familiar scaly face in mauve armor, energy knife ready, held above his head, ready to end another disgusting human.

"I guess that's why you want to be a Huntress?" Coco asked, for the first time Six was completely caught of guard.

"Huh, what?"

"That's the reason you want to be a Huntress right? To stop things like that happening again." Coco explained, looking at Six, seeing confusion on the girls face.

"Yes, yes it is..." Six trailed of, her mind unable to come up with a satisfactory answer to the question.

"Well, can't fight in dirty underwear can we? Come on Six lets sort you out!" Coco declared, leading her into the shop.

…

Six was happy with how the day went on the airship back to Beacon; she was feeling substantially better than she had in the morning, not only did she have the parts to start constructing something approximating her old armor; she had to be honest; the spa trip had made her feel better.

But the one thing that was bothering Six was what Coco had said to her, why did she fight? It was all she was capable of doing, she'd never been given the option.

 _Its irrelevant Spartan; you don't have a choice, those Grimm aren't going away, you can fight them, its your duty, you need to do this._

Six agreed with her argument, she was the one who'd made it; but their was this tiny voice in the back of her head she couldn't quite drown out.

 _Why did you start fighting?_

The fact she couldn't think of the answer to that question did not help the Spartan sleep that night.

…

"Thank you for seeing me at such a late hour Miss Adel."

Coco sat across form Professor Ozpin; trying to hide the fact she was annoyed at being called up to talk to the head master just as she was getting ready for bed.

"Its no trouble Professor."

"Still I apologies, given it's late I'd like to cut to the chase; what is your opinion on Noble Six?"

Coco blinked, surprised to hear this.

"Erm... she's fine, a little weird, but gal lost her home, it doesn't surprise me she's not all there."

Ozpin looked looked up from his coffee mug, eyebrow raised.

"She lost her home?"

Coco cursed herself internally, this was a privet matter; she really shouldn't have let that slip.

"Well... When her home was brought up she mentioned it was burned to oblivion, so I'm guessing it caught fire... is it true she woke up naked in the forest Professor?" Coco asked, she wanted to know if this was true or not, Six had acted very calm about this, so maybe it wasn't right, she had said her brain was a bit scrambled...

"That is true, in all honesty the circumstance behind how she arrived is part of the reason I wish to talk to you."

"Okay Sir, what do want to know?"

"Anything she let slip to be honest, we know nothing about her, I want to trust her; but it would be unwise to let a complete unknown run around unchecked..."

"Hold on!" Coco interrupted. "Your acting as if shes some kind of monster, shes a bit messed up but shes not evil!"

Ozpin smiled; adding:

"I never said she was, I said she was an unknown; and I agree with you, she's done nothing to prove she isn't trustworthy. What I'm worried about is her mental state, its disturbingly fragile."

Coco nodded slowly.

"Theirs defiantly something weird about her..."

"That is why I would like to ask you to do me a small favor." Ozpin explained, looking at her; finally setting his mug down.

"Your up coming mission; I would like to ask you to take Six with you."

Coco tilted her head in confusion.

"Sir is that wise, she's only a first year and where going into a high risk area, would that even be safe for her?" Ozpin smiled, tapping a few buttons on his desk.

"Watch this, I guarantee you her fighting skills are up to scratch." Coco turned to watch the screen that had emerged from the desk, it showed a sparing match, Six VS Blake, the girl Velvet talked to occasionally.

"No weapons?" Coco asked, peering at the screen; the pair where attacking each other with their bare fists, and Six was winning; by a very long margin. No matter what Blake did Six was able to knock her down, the speed the girl moved at was insane; seemly able to predict Blake's moves; none of the matched lasted beyond fifteen seconds.

"Her fighting skills are far beyond your average first year, with four second years protecting her I'm sure she'll be fine, so are you okay to have her accompany you?"

"Yes..." Coco said, before thinking of something. "... Though what about the rest of her team? Are they coming?"

"Miss Six does not have a team Miss Adel; her entrance was... unusual; so she doesn't have a place, she seams fine on her own, but shes been having trouble sleeping recently; and given how she acts I would rather she wasn't on her own while your gone for a month."

"Doesn't she have any friends in her year?"

"No, she doesn't, she seams to be actively trying to block people out, with the exception of you; for some reason she trusts you, and she clearly needs help."

"Okay; I get that... but why did you call me up alone, why not tell the whole team?"

"Well; mostly its because I wanted to ask you something."

"Okay, what?"

"We cant help Six until we know what she's going through, she actively fights against telling us anything about her past, but if you can get her to open up?"

"You want me to spy on her?"

"I want you to report to me if you find out anything significant, and be there for her, the last thing that girl needs is to be alone."

"Okay; I'll do it." Coco eventually said after a few minutes of thought.

"Thank you..." Ozpin started to say but Coco interrupted.

"But I want to be sure about something, is this information gonna hurt Six?"

Ozpin took a sip of hot chocolate and calmly replied.

"If she is dangerous to the world than yes, however..." He said, putting his hand up to stop Coco from saying the retort that had just sprang to her lips. "... That is only if she is dangerous or a double agent, if, as is most likely, she's just lost and confused I will do everything in my power to help her." He said, Coco smiled and took his hand.

"Okay then, you've got a deal."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Closest thing to home

Most of team CFVY was tired, it was five thirty in the morning and they all wanted more sleep; but they had their mission and they needed to be at the nests location by eight, and with the speed their ship this was the latest they could afford to get up.

"Urgh... Guess I better get used to not having enough beauty sleep on this mission." Muttered a sleepy Coco, hoping Six had followed her notes and she wouldn't have to go get the other girl.

"Yeah, though knowing you you'd still look better than the rest of us even after two weeks in the wild." Velvet commented, the faunus looking jealously at Coco's perfect hair.

"We will be fine with our looks compromised." Fox commented, him being the only member of the team who looked properly awake.

"Your unable to judge no matter what we look like, and anyway, I have a greater concern." Yatsuhashi commented. Coco groaned and rounded on her teammate.

"Not this again."

"I still say it's reckless to bring a first year on this mission, she could be a liability." The giant man commented.

"Look the Headmaster told me to bring her along and that's what we're doing, besides I've seen the girl fight, trust me she can handle a few Grimm." Coco said, in a tone that firmly established this conversation was over.

The team was approaching the airship now and to Coco's dismay Six wasn't standing there.

"Where is she?" Asked Velvet looking around curiously.

"No idea..." Muttered Coco, walking towards the ship and getting the shock of her life when it took off. The ship didn't go anywhere, it took off, hovered, and then flew in a loop before landing again. The ramp opened and Six walked of, talking to the pilot who was taking them out.

"You sure you never flew a Bullhead before?" Asked the pilot, grinning down at the lavender haired girl who shook her head.

"Never, though I have flown something similar, they where... Unique to my village UH-144 Falcon and various Pelicans, the Bullhead fly's in a similar manner to the pair." The girl explained.

Team CFVY was surprised, Six had apparently been flying, how was it a girl who didn't seam to get the most basic things could fly an airship it took years to learn? They were also surprised to see Six in her combat outfit, seeing as she actually had one now.

She was wearing a pair of Cargo trousers intended for men (Mostly because of the pockets) a tight fitting black shirt, a clunky pair of combat boots. This was normal and Coco had seen these elements (she'd helped pick them for her) but what she hadn't seen was the armor she'd forged.

It was heavy, a bulky angular chest plate, some hexagonal shoulder plates and shin armor. The final piece completing the set was the helmet the girl was wore, a triangular visor to fit into a pair shaped helmet. Six was happy, it had been based on the ODST armor and she'd done a decent job of recreating it, though she wished she'd had time to paint it, but duty called, and she was ready.

"Coco..." Six started, seeing the team leader (And her superior for the duration of the mission) "... Good to see you, I've been familiarising myself with our ship, apparently I qualify to be a co pilot." Completely ignoring the strange looks she was getting from the team Six continued. "I have already packed my equipment aboard the airship, I will be ready to leave as soon as the rest of team is." She then just stood there, waiting for Coco to respond. After a few seconds pause Coco said:

"Er... Very good Six, we'll leave now, everyone lets get aboard." She said, hastily trying to act like a proper team leader. Her team got back on board, with Six settling into the back, on the other side of the ship to team CFVY.

Once the ship was up Coco decided to re iterate the brief, mostly for Six so the girl could get the exact details on what they where doing, all she had at the moment was the quick explanation Coco had told her two days ago before running of to class.

"Okay guys, we're heading to a village just outside of Vale, its got a bit of a Grimm problem and our job is to destroy the nest. We don't know the full extent but from what we can tell its mostly Beowolfs and Creep's, so nothing particularly strong, but most of them will work with swarm tactics, so we don't go anywhere alone and we don't get overwhelmed, you got me?" her team nodded, as did Six, who was looking to clarify something.

"Yes Six?"

"Beowolfs are pack animals, the average pack has about 30 members correct?"

Coco nodded, not sure where Six was going.

"Well doesn't that give us some idea on what we're dealing with, or will they group up other packs?"

Velvet chose to explain.

"No, but they want to kill us, so they usually share a sleeping spot and hunt at different times of the day, so we have to find this cave and destroy it."

Six nodded, and then asked.

"If that's the case should we not attempt to locate the cave they'll be sleeping in and caving it in on them?"

"We would have no definite answer to if we got all of them if we did that, plus most of the caves are tunnels the villages use to get to each other quickly." Yatsuhashi said, giving Six the stink eye. Six's tinted out visor hid how she was responding to the comment.

"Very well, I take it then the idea is going to be take out packs between during their hunting periods so we can end this quickly?" Six asked. Coco nodded.

"Yup, if we do this right we'll be back home within the week."

…

 _Three Months later_

"Coco!" Velvet cried, trying to fight her way closer to her team leader, who was desperately trying to fight off a group of Beowolfs approaching her.

"I got it!" Six cried, leaping over a Beowolf and slamming her hammer down onto one of the Grimm's skull. Before flipping over another one and slamming her hammer into another Grimm. Six jumped around and flipped about, her hammer effectively crushing another one, this minor release on pressure for Coco aloud her a second to get back on her feet and finish of this group of Grimm with her minigun.

"Ah, thanks Six." Coco muttered as she retracted her gun back into its bag form, Six nodded, but kept her weapon out. She was used to carrying one around for hours on end and had lost troopers who hadn't followed this strategy.

"No problem, though I'm still concerned about the amount of Grimm where finding, this is the third nest in the area we've cleared out since we got here, why are there so many nests in this area?"

"I have no idea, though I gotta admit its worrying me that there are so many." Coco said, looking around the forest. It was at that point Fox chose to speak up.

"Coco, perhaps we should call for back up, this is far to extreme for us to deal with, we need help."

"No way, we got this! All we need to do..." As the group Argued Six chose to explore the perimeter, these arguments had been getting more frequent and they already knew where Six stood, she wasn't going until the job was done. That being said a trip to a safe point to restock would be beneficial.

It was after a few minutes of stopping that Six herd something, something that was, to say the least; Unexpected.

 _No, that's not..._

Six approached the ridge where the sound was coming from. Six looked over the edge and her heart skipped a bit.

Elites.

A group of them, talking to a group of people Six had never seen, but the logo matched with a news report she'd seen before the mission, these where the White Fang. The Pro Faunus Terrorist group.

 _Why are they together, where did they come from? Are their more of them? Is the fleet on the way?_

Six had no answers to these questions, but she needed intel so she crept towards the edge, she needed to hear what they where saying.

"So we have an agreement?" One of the Faunus asked, looking at the Alien being that stood next to him.

"We do." The leader said, a brick shit house of an elite, more muscular than your average solider with an energy sword strapped to his hip and a Plasma rifle strapped to his back. He offered his hand to the Faunus who took it. The pair shook.

The Leader of the Elites nodded and the pair behind him took the large green crate they had and brought it over to the White Fang members. Who waited until the Elites had began walking back before opening the crates and examining the contents.

Six gasped.

Armor, Mjolnir power armor.

The set was an old model, Specifically a prototype version that Six had never seen in person. The thing was a huge mechanical beast, its green and yellow paint shone, a canon on its left shoulder, a missile launcher on its right, and a Gatling canon replacing its right hand.

According to the official reports the one surviving Mark 1 suit had been destroyed by the soldier known as Ghost, but official reports said a lot; for example that the Lambardi Crime Family had been taken out due to infighting that exploded at a family meeting and while it was true the family members had beef with each other Six was fairly sure her bursting in with a rocket launcher and an energy sword had more to do with them dyeing than infighting did.

Anyway, this Mark 1, clearly there had been more than one of them and somehow the Covenant had gotten a hold of one and where selling it to terrorists. Six growled behind her helmet. Normally the theft of Spartan armor was a big deal because of the tech that built it, not because of the damage a person could do with it, mostly because most the armor would kill anyone who wasn't a Spartan that attempted to put it on; but this suit, a normal soldier could use it, the White Fang could use it.

Six wasn't gonna let that happen. She reached for her scroll and called Coco.

"Six where are you girl..." She started but Six butted in.

"We got White Fang, they've made an alliance with another faction I've encountered before, they have advanced technology they're trading with goods they must not be aloud to keep, I need help stopping them."

Coco seamed shocked, but she responded.

"Okay Six, we're on our way."

"Good, be warned this new faction is extremely dangerous and will kill without remorse." Six said, only to have her luck take a swan dive of a cliff.

"Hey I hear someone over there!"

"Shit! Coco move your ass I'm under attack!" Six cried before leaping out. The enemy didn't hesitate, they leaped at her.

Six responded with a fury the spartan never thought she'd ever get to unleash. Her hammer swung like crazy as she mercilessly fought against these... these... things.

Six fought as hard as she could but being a spartan only counted for so much, Six eventually had her helmet smashed of her head, she fell to the ground, an Elite standing over her. A scaley face starred back at her, she knew what this meant.

 _Wonder if I'll wake up somewhere else again this time?_

Six was ready, but the energy sword never made contact with her. A round of Gatling fire went of, exploding the head of the Elite. Six turned and felt her face split in one of the few legitimate smiles she'd ever made.

Team CFVY was on the ridge of the cliff, Coco had her gun ready and the rest where readying there weapons.

They were here.

The fight that sprang out was intense and Six had no desire to get caught in the middle, she had something she needed to do.

Six watched as the Elites ran and the White Fang prepared to fight back, Six needed to help.

Crawling the Spartan dragged her way across the ground, there was a crate she needed to reach.

Unfortunately a White Fang agent had had the same idea and unluckily her he wasn't beaten up and thus got there first.

Six Growled in anger, he had no right to wear that suit, he had no right to use it, that surge of aggression gave her the energy to spring to her feet and smash her fist into the White Fangs face. This caused him to stagger as Six jumped into her suit.

The armor encapsulated her as she punched in her number, the suit recognised it and turned on.

She felt, felt like she was back on reach, she was home she had armor again, it was different, but it was hers, she let a smile spread across her face as she looked down at the White Fang member who'd been attempting to take the suit.

She readied her fist and drove a high powered fist into the Elite's face, it felt so good to be able to do this again, for the first time in a month her fist had the power it should have behind it, and the damage it did was incredible.

The alien barley had a split second to react before being flung across the battle field and slamming several White Fang members of there feet. Six turned to her team, before raising her gattling gun hand and striking the group of white fang who were shooting at them.

The speed at which the fell was incredible.

 _I see why Jorge liked these things._

Six's good mood was ruined when the group of Elites that had ran came back, but this time in a Wraith tank.

 _Shit._

Team CFVY did its best, open firing on it, but they had no experience dealing with theses things, so Six activated the suits speakers and announced:

"Team CFVY, you get the White Fang, I'll get the tank."

Her team looked in shock to see there unofficial teammates voice coming from the heavy power armor.

Six didn't hang around for questions, she sprang forward, activating the gun on her suit, using the Gatling gun for cover fire as she ran past the White Fang and straight for the tank.

She jumped, feeling the booster jets kick in as she smashed down onto the Wraith, her fist collided with the tanks gun and shattered the thing to pieces. She gripped what was left of the turret before pulling out a grenade from the suits thigh, she stuck it to the side before leaping away as it exploded.

The Tank exploded, White Fang turned and looked at her, fear in there eyes as team CFVY just looked in awe at the burning wreck.

It was then that Six learned her job wasn't over, against all odds the Elite's leader had survived, his golden armor burnt but clearly still functioning as the figure inside spat at her, one of its mandibles missing spitting its words more than saying it.

"So, A Demon made it here as well?" It said, venom in its voice as it looked at Six, who slowly began moving forward, each step causing the ground to shake.

"Correct." Six replied, raising the gun on her suit.

"You may kill me, but there are more of us on this planet! They will hunt you down, you will burn! Just like your kind does on every other planet! Your filth will be purged, the galaxy will be..." It didn't get to finish it's rant, however, it wasn't because Six chose to rid the universe of it. It was because a tranquilizer dart had just struck it.

The thing fell top the ground and Six turned to look at the Bullhead's floating above her, one of ships had its side doors open and a gunner had its sniper rifle ready.

"Team CFVY, I believe its time for a debrief." A very familiar voice said.

"Professor Ozpin?" All the students on the ground said in confusion as they looked up.

"Yes and I do believe you five have earned a brake."

Team CFVY was happy to hear this, but Nobel Six had to speak up.

"Sir, I believe there is information I must pass onto you, it involves the Aliens... and where I come from." Six said, Team CFVY looked confused, Ozpin did respond however.

"Yes I believe that would be best; however it can wait till we're back at Beacon, will you be keeping the power armor?" He asked. Six nodded firmly.

"Yes." It was unusual to hear Six say those words. Ozpin was a higher up, normally she would have complete respect for him, however this time she hadn't been rude, but it had defiantly been a statement; she was keeping the armor no matter what he said.

Luckily Ozpin was happy to give her the suit.

"Very well, get on board, its been a long time since you were back at Beacon, some of your classmates would like to see you."

Underneath her helmet Six aloud herself a smile, the Bullhead already had its doors open, could she?

Six bent her knees and then activated the rockets, jumping into the air, crashing down inside the Bullhead, the Sniper jumping back about a foot as the power armor landed.

The rest of Team CFVY waited for the ship to be on the ground, looking at the power armor as Nobel Six stepped out.

"Well this is new." Coco said, smiling slyly at the Spartan, who looked confused.

"What's new?"

"Your smiling." Coco responded, ruffling her hair before settling down on the bench. Six just stood there, surprised, she was happy wasn't she...

"Enjoyed the suit?" Proffessor Ozpin asked, Six turned around and nodded.

"Yes, the suit... it makes me feel like I'm home again."

"Well that's nice to hear, we're collecting those crates, will you be willing to identify any of the contents?"

Six nodded.

"That would be best, I haven't looked in all of them but if it's anything like Mjolnir then it will have some of the most dangerous cargo in the Galaxy on board"

"Don't worry we wont be leaving any of them, now, go rest with your team, you need it."

For once Six didn't disagree, the armor gave her some comfort and she was safe, she could take a good sleep.

Six wasn't sure what was going on, or why, but for the first time since she woke up in Remnant she was able to sleep without a nightmare, maybe because she wasn't stranded anymore, she had her suit along with her, and maybe that was all she needed, whether it lasted or not was irreverent, for now he was going to sleep happily for the first time in a while.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Major Debrief

"So Miss Adel, what are your opinions on Noble Six now you've been on a mission with her?" Ozpin asked, sipping his hot chocolate as he looked at Coco.

Coco had to think for a second before she responded, the three months she'd spent with Six had been... unusual.

"It was defiantly a different side to her." She eventually said, rubbing her eyes. She really wanted to head back to her room with the rest of her team, but she had to report on Six to Ozpin so she guessed that's what she was gonna do.

"How so?"

"Well, it's hard to explain, I guess the best way of putting it would be she was in her element." When Ozpin continued to look at her questioningly Coco elaborated.

"I got the impressing Six is more comfortable in a fight than she is in her off time, they way she acted, it was all business, she was on watch the longest, helped with a fair bit of strategies and despite not having an aura she fought like a demon, out of all of us I think she killed the most Grimm."

Ozpin nodded, putting his mug down and typing away on his keyboard.

"Very well, was there anything you thought was unusual about her?"

Coco vigorously nodded.

"Yeah, quite a bit actually."

"Could you give me some examples Miss Adel?" Ozpin asked.

"Sure, the first thing was, she can fly an airship without any training, she has apparently encountered frigging lizard men before and she now has control over a mech suit that she instantly knew how to use."

Ozpin finished typing and then said (Almost to himself)

"Yes that matches with what she's told me before, one last question..." He gave Coco his full attention at this point, his eyes seaming to stare straight into her as he said. "...Do you think Six is dangerous?"

Coco shook her head, almost without thinking.

"No, I think she's hiding something without question, but I get the feeling its not out of malice or intent to hurt us." Coco explained, Ozpin nodded and smiled.

"Very well Miss Adel, you may go, I don't have anymore questions for you."

Surprised that it was over so quickly Coco got up and headed for the door. As she headed to her room she couldn't get Six out of her head. The girl she'd fist interpreted as being a little weird was proving to be extremely weird and also completely insane.

What were those armored Lizard things? How did Six know what they where? How the hell had she been able to just get inside a mech suit and know how to use it?

These questions where temporally shoved out of Cocos head as she caught up with her team. Unsurprisingly Velvet was the first to hear Coco's footsteps and slowed up to let her teammate catch up.

"That was quicker than expected." She said with a smile as Coco finally caught up.

"Yeah, he just wanted to ask me a few questions." Coco yawned as she looked over at Yatsuhashi and then snorted with laughter.

Nobel Six was snoozing in his arms, it was a shock to see the difference to how she normal was. Six had a presence, you knew she was in the room and you got the impression that, while small she was a force to be reckoned with... Now though...

Six looked happy, not a care in the world, that presence was gone as her body fully relaxed, her scarred arms dangling down and floppy. Her Lavender fringe (which was far longer than it used to be due to it going three months without being cut) was being blown up every time she breathed out. Noble Six was, well... Adorable.

"Do you know where her room is?" Yatsuhashi asked as he looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms.

"Er... No... Do you want to wake her up?" Coco asked.

"No..." Velvet responded, shaking her head. " …You saw her on the mission, the girl never sleeps this peacefully; we should let her have this."

"So whats the plan?" Fox asked, Coco thought for a second.

"We'll take her to our room; she can sleep on the floor, If I surrender one of my pillows that should be good enough, I get the impression she's used to harder surfaces than most of us." Coco said, remembering how Six could just sleep in her full armor against a rock with little difficulty... On the rare occasion she'd actually slept.

The group agreed and headed to there room, being careful to not wake the sleeping Spartan as the went, she deposited on the floor and straggly, as Yatsuhashi let go Six mumbled:

"Jorge don't put me doowwwnnn..." Sleepily the Spartan spread out on the floor and wriggled around until she was comfortable. The four members of team CFVY looked at the sleeping girl as she lay on the floor, before they eventually decided to get into bed, and ignoring the fact it was actually about 5 in the morning due to when they got back the four crashed out on there own beds.

...

When Six woke up the next day she was in an empty room she didn't recognise. Curious the Spartan pushed herself up, it was fairly clear this was a normal Beacon dorm, but whose room was it and why was she in it.

Her answer came in the form of a piece of paper stuck to the door, it read:

 _Six, thought we'd let ya sleep in a bit, your entitled to a week off training after this mission so enjoy it!_

 _Coco._

Six smiled and removed the note, wondering what she was gonna do for the next week, then the memories of her new armor sprang to mind and she grinned.

Six wondered as she walked down to the main hall to get some food why she was so happy, the Covenant where here on Remnant, logically she should be terrified, but she wasn't.

 _The Covenant forces are small, they have to be, if they had a ship they would have glassed this planet already, plus their armour looked damaged, the fact the hadn't fixed it indicates they're not at full strength, also they were trading with the White Fang, no way they'd do that if they had a choice, they must be struggling._

The fact the Covenant where struggling brought joy to Six, it wasn't a nice kind of joy, but still, joy.

The Spartan was smiling as she opened the doors and looked around. The hall was full of people munching down on lunch. Six looked around for an empty seat, but she was interrupted when someone called her.

"Hey Six your back!" A voice called, Six looked around and saw the speaker.

"Nora." She said as she moved over to the orange haired girls seat and sat down next to her.

"How was your mission?" Jaune asked, his mouth full of food as he read a comic.

"I liked it, but it went on for longer than I was expecting." Six said simply, grabbing an entire turkey from the table and began tearing it to shreds.

"I'm guessing you didn't have as much food as you would have liked?" Lie Ren asked, Six nodded as she swallowed most of the leg in one go.

"We ran out of supply's about two weeks ago, we where living of berry's and little else." Six explained as she took another apple of the table.

Six was a Spartan, she was used to living of basically a gray paste stuff that would keep you healthy, but defiantly wouldn't keep you happy. The main thing Six liked about being on Remnant was access to proper food and she had been missing it these last few weeks.

"Ouch, sounds harsh, why'd it take so long?" Jaune asked.

"We went out to destroy a Grimm nest, but there were three and the Grimm kept moving around; we only just got all of them before heading back." Six said, deciding the Covenant were a subject she needed advice on before discussing them with other students.

"Makes sense I guess... Nora!" Phyrrha cried as Nora (Who'd been throwing food toward another table for all the time they'd been talking.) Hit Weiss in the face with a cream pie, Six was disappointed in Nora, she couldn't remember the last time she'd had pie.

The other teams eyes all hardened, as did team JNPR, the stare was intense, until without a word food started flying, Six watched mildly interested as she attempted to wolf down more food before it was gone.

"Six help me!" Nora cried as began grabbing and throwing the tables around, seemingly forming a tower of some kind, Six looked at her, then smiled; grabbing the other end and helping Nora throw it to the top of her formation.

The physics of Remnant continued to amaze Nobel Six, the Spartan had to admit she was interested in seeing how this played out.

"I'm queen of the Castle, I'm queen of the Castle!" Nora sang from atop her monument, Six looked as Team RWBY readied itself for a fight, Six realized she was Standing on JNPR's side.

 _Guess I know who I'm fighting for today._

The following fight would easily go down in history as the most bizarre thing Six had ever been apart of and that included waking up on an alien world younger without her enhancements.

The fight was insane, Ren kicked melons, Yang used Turkeys on her fist's; Blake and Phyra fought with baguettes.

Six couldn't help it, she was laughing, this was mental, this was insane, this was fun!

It reminded her of the Red vs Blue training matches Spartans took a part of in, two teams just fighting each other for no reason other than training.

Six's thoughts where interrupted when Weiss charged at her with a Swordfish, Six just about darted out of the way, grabbing a can of Soda, throwing it and hitting the white haired girl in the back, the contents exploded and she turned, her cold eyes focused on Six's.

Weiss adopted a fighting stance as Six readied her fist's, Weiss went for a stab, Six dodged, ducking a few more swipes before grabbing Weiss' arm as she attempted another stab, Six used the white haired girls momentum against her as she grabbed the girl and threw her, Weiss slammed into the ground as Six grabbed the discarded fish and threw it away.

Six made a very rookie mistake at that point, she thought she'd won and was being careless, she ran at Weiss, attempting to deal the finishing blow to this fight, but because she thought Weiss was out she didn't see the Heiress grab a bottle of ketchup and spray it onto the ground.

Six lost all footing as she skidded and to make things worse at this bad moment Yang joined the fight against Six (having just sent Jaune flying into the wall.) The pair ganged up on her, fists flying and the floor becoming more traitorous as Weiss attained more condiments.

Six's focus regained control quickly, Weiss was destabilizing the floor for all three of them and eventually Yang overthrew a punch and Six was able to spin round and deliver a punch to the back of the blonds head and sent her slamming into the ground. This new obstacle on the floor also lead to Weiss' end, she was fairly outmatched once the fighter of there team was taken out.

Six drove her fist into Weiss' face as she was flung back across the room.

"Weiss noooooooooo!" Ruby called from across the hall; she readied herself, Six knew what was coming. Six had only fought Ruby three times in sparing, and each time Ruby had been faster than Six and her weapon proved superior.

Nobel Six had only beaten Ruby once and that was due to luck more than anything else, she'd slammed her hammer down and had been lucky enough to catch her in the shock wave as she charged at her, but this move... Six couldn't stop anything.

She was moving at incredible speed, collecting Team JNPR and basically anything else behind her, the wall of debris and speeding teenager was sent right at Six, she had only only one option, she couldn't win this fight, but she could make it a draw.

Six readied one last punch, she had only one chance at this. As Ruby approached her she shot of her fist and hit her directly in the face.

The wall of debris didn't stop moving, everything hit Six but Ruby was also caught up in it, as was everyone else.

The nine teen's slammed into the back wall of the food hall as did all the food, it was one of the times Six wished she had an Aura because all the food and metal hit her and unlike everyone else she had no defense against it.

Six was embedded in the wall, covered from head to foot in food debris and liquids of all types, the wall was cracked and eventually everyone fell of the wall and crashed down in a pile, all of them laughing themselves silly, except for Six who was coughing up blood through choke's of laughter as she nursed her many bruises.

The nine of them lay there, just laughing and looking at each other as the adrenaline wore of. Six looked around, they where in a lot of trouble, they had ruined half the tables and... wait where did that broken window and hole in the ceiling come from? (The masonry in Blake and Nora's hair probably answered that question.)

The happiness was ruined as Professor Goodwitch entered the hall. She looked enraged as she swung her riding crop, to Six's surprise the tables all moved back into place, even one which had been smashed in half reformed, splinters fitting back into table's perfectly.

"Children, please... Do not play with your food." She eventually said, rage was clearly bubbling under the surface, Six expected more but Professor Ozpin interrupted her, Six didn't know what was said between the two but nothing else came from it, although she did walk over to Six.

"Miss Six, your bleeding." Six looked confused for a second, before touching her forehead and feeling the warm wet liquid trailing down it.

"Go to the Nurse and get yourself patched up, then head to the Headmasters office, he wants to discuss the ending of your mission with you."

Six nodded and set of, limping slightly as her bruised shin complained all the way.

...

"I do wish you'd be more careful Six." Beacons resident Nurse said, looking up at the girl as she finished wrapping the bandages around the Spartans arm.

"I am careful." Six said simply. It was true, she was careful by her standards, it's just as a Spartan III what was considered careful was vastly different to anyone else.

"No your not." The Nurse responded, reaching down to pick up her first aid kit, her horse tail flicking around in agitation as she put the case away.

"If you were careful you wouldn't be my most frequent visitor."

"I'm sorry, I just break easily compared to everyone else." That was a weird thing for Six to say, being a Spartan normally meant you where far less fragile than anyone else.

"I can tell that, you have had more sparing injury's than any other first years and considering you went on a mission for three out of the four months you've been out here that's a very bad sign."

Six tilted her head in confusion as she looked at the Nurse. (Who's name was Locasta for the record)

"Is it that bad?" The Spartan asked, wondering if she should considered converting her suits shield generator into something she could take around with her if it was that bad.

"September 12th first admitted with two broken limbs, two broken arms, a burn wound to the arm, feet with most of there skin missing, several smaller cuts and bruises to the body. September 15th admitted with severe bruising to the abdomen after a spar with Nora Valkyrie. September 17th admitted with a broken left hand after a fight with Cardin Winchester..." Six smiled at that one, the fight had been brutal and while her hand may have been broken, Cardin was far worse of. "... September 18th admitted with a burn on the left cheek after a spar with Weiss Schnee... Do I need to go on?"

"No, I believe I have the idea, avoid getting hit better." Six responded, the Nurse looked infuriated.

"Six, I will be blunt, you shouldn't be getting hit at all, you shouldn't be here in the first place!" Locasta yelled, Six didn't jump, she expected it every time she visited the Faunus Nurse.

"I'm not leaving." The Spartan responded, her eyes hard as she looked at the Nurse.

"Why!? Why would you put your life on the line like this? Your only going to end up getting yourself killed like this, why not head home and get a normal safe job..."

Six held her hand up.

"I can't go home, it's gone and I'm going to make sure it never happens again." Six said, her voice remaining calm.

"Six you can't do this, your only going to end up getting killed if you keep this up!"

"It doesn't matter, I will not stop." It amazed Six how happy she'd been when she entered the Nurses office, because she certainly wasn't now.

"Six there's no reason for you to do this..."

"Yes there is." Six retorted, trying to shove several figures out of her brain.

"Then what is it? What could possibly make what your doing to yourself worth it?"

"Its not important..." Six muttered, trying to force the images out of her brain.

"It must be for you to do this, so spill it, I'm all ears." Locasta shot back.

"It's none of you're business." Six retorted, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

"It's my responsibility to look after all the student's here, so yes it is my business."

"No it isn't." Six tried to leave, standing up and forcing her way towards the door.

"Noble Six get back here right now."

"No, good day." Six said, forcing the door open with such force the frame buckled and the door refused to stay shut.

"Noble Six I mean it, get back here!"

Six ignored her, setting off, still limping, but she was done there, she was going to talk to Professor Ozpin, she wanted to know what was in those crates and that was a far better use of her time than that was.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 Someone who gets it.

Noble six was fuming all the way up the elevator, she was trying to regain her composure but that wasn't going well for her.

Six was angry, both at her memory's and her behaviour.

 _Of course Nurse Locasta would be concerned, anyone would be, but where does she get off saying... She's doing her job... Well she shouldn't... Yes she should and you know she's right, why are you trying to kill yourself like this?_

Six's brain was still arguing with itself by the time she made it to the Headmasters office. She tried regain her composure as she knocked, though judging by the dent she made in the door she wasn't doing a very impressive job of that.

"Come in." Ozpin said, Six pushed the door open and was surprised by what she saw.

The office had quite an impressive view, being located at the top of Beacons main tower this was to be expected, what wasn't expected was the Atlas fleet outside the window (This was assuming she was recognising the kingdom's logo correctly) nor the other man in the room as she entered.

"Hello, you must be Noble Six, I'm General ironwood of the Atlas military." The man introduced himself as, Offering Six his gloved hand. The fact he only had one glove on one hand and how it felt when she shook lead Six to a conclusion.

 _A cyborg?_

Six didn't say anything, he was hiding it and thus probably wasn't keen on talking about it, and the less she thought about cyborgs the better.

"You wanted to talk to me sir?" Six asked, turning her attention to Ozpin.

"Yes, we intend to open the crates and we would like you on hand in case we find anything else native to your home, although where gonna need at least he basics on where you came from."

"How much have you told General Ironwood sir?" Six asked, looking towards the man dressed in white.

"I have been informed that your not native to Remnant and know something about the alien's we recovered at the site of the trade over."

"That's the basic's of what you need to know, what else would you like me to tell you?" The Spartan asked.

"What role did you play in your encounters with these creatures before now." General ironwood said, Six nodded.

"Very well, My home world is... Was called Reach, it was the home of the Spartan program (it was named after an ancient race of warriors from about two thousand years ago) I was a part of the Spartan III program, basically elite commandos. I got here after my last mission... Well I finished it."

"What do you mean by finished it?" Ironwood asked, to respond Six grabbed her shirt and exposed her stomach, showing the burn wound in her chest

"I completed the mission objective and then suffered an Energy Sword to the gut's." Six responded, dropping her shirt to hide it again.

"I see, is it normal for 'Spartans'...? to survive that sort of injury?" Ozpin asked, Six rather suspected he knew the answer.

"No, I should have met my end there on Reach... but I didn't, I apologise but I don't know how I got here... Permission to speak freely sir?" Six asked, she had a question she wanted to know the answer to.

"Granted." Ozpin said, taking a sip of his hot chocolate.

"Why are you believing this? this story is insane!" Six cried, looking at the man with confusion.

"You mean besides the physical proof you've left behind?" Ozpin asked, once Six nodded he elaborated.

"Six, this world is full of strange things. I have heard a lot of them and met quite a few more. Your story is far from the strangest thing in the world, Now..." The way Ozpin spoke clearly indicated to Six that she wasn't to bring it up anymore. " …I believe we have some crates to investigate."

"Yessir." Six said, happy to move on, while under control her anger was still bubbling under the surface, talking about the Spartan program had brought memory's to the surface and she wanted them to be buried again.

As the trio rode down in the elevator Six turned to the General.

"General Ironwood sir?" She asked, he looked at her.

"Yes Six?" He asked, his face seamed to be working, it had been ever since she'd explained who she was.

"Why are you here? More to the point why is a large part of the Atlesian air force outside the school?"

It wasn't the General who responded, Ozpin cut him off before he could speak.

"The General is visiting for the Vital festival, he brought the fleet with him because he felt our security might be lacking due to recent incidents you need not worry yourself with."

"Okay Sir." The Spartan responded, looking at the General again. His face was still rock solid as he looked at her. Six thought about the General, he didn't seam rude, but he clearly wasn't happy about something, was it her or the aliens that was driving this?

The rest of the elevator ride was done in silence; something Six didn't want, those memory's where unearthing and it was getting harder to ignore the big noble elephant in her brain.

Finally the elevator doors opened and they entered a room with no windows and the crates piled up.

"This place isn't on the map..." Six said, she knew full well that it wasn't, she had Beacon's map ingrained into her brain, this place clearly wasn't here, also the elevator ride had taken longer to go down that it had to go up, and Six had got on at the ground floor, so a secret basement?

"No it isn't, I take it you're going to remain silent about this." The General said in a way which made Six fully understand it wasn't actually a question.

"Yessir."

"Well, We should start on these crates, Six where do you recommend we start?" Professor Ozpin questioned.

With no proper idea in mind she just looked at each crate, eventually moving towards a purple metal crate on the far left.

"This one is the most likely to be dangerous, we should start here." Six said, carefully feeling up the rubber grip until she found the the gap in the seal she was looking for. Carefully Six pulled the door open, bracing for a trap, but it seamed like the Elites had proven trust worthy to the White Fang and given them a proper crate.

Six reached in and began pulling out the supply of weapons from the crates.

"Guess the Elites didn't want there supply of Needlers or Plasma pistols." Six commented, looking down at the collection of weapons.

"These are weapons from those Lizard men?" Ironwood asked, looking at Six.

"Yes, Technically I've seen other Covenant members using all of these, the only weapons I've seen exclusively used via Elites are there Energy Swords, but it makes sense for them to give them these."

"How so?" Ironwood asked.

"Plasma Pistols are mass produced, there given to the Grunts, they're slow to fire and low power, this means they suffer from the condition of being completely terrible, I never use them if I can help it."

"Very well, what about the other weapon, 'Needlers' I believe you called them? Why would they want to get rid of them?" The General inquired.

"I would suspect its a munitions problem, Needlers use a unique type of ammo that differs from from most Covenant weaponry..." Six explained, picking up a Needler, giving it a sudden shake to bring out its crystals. "... While I can't be sure on this, I would imagine they want to start making ammo for there weapons and it would be far simpler to just make the Plasma most of there weapons use."

"So you think they where giving the White Fang weapons they wouldn't be able to use effectively to get resources to make there own weapon fuel?" The General said, his thoughts mirroring Six's.

"That would be my suspicion, I feel they may have screwed up though in there plan." Six commented, this Time Ozpin asked a question.

"Why do you think that?"

"While I cannot prove this the White Fang I encountered had pure Melee weapons on them, I think they may have thought this world didn't have guns, energy weapons are powerful but you don't need them, I think they may have tried to arm a terrorist group that was far better armed than they thought."

"How is this relevant?" Ironwood cut in.

"It's relevant because it means there ignorant, the White Fang would work out quickly not to trade with a group that gives them guns with less than twenty shots, if we get lucky the White Fang might start a fight with the Covenant Forces here, which would be a good thing, The more people shooting at the Covenant the better." Six said, a small part of her brain admitting the main thing she was happy about was other people fighting and killing the Elites, the fact people where doing that would always make her happy.

"While I agree that more people giving our enemy's problems are good, I'm not happy with the White Fang having access to alien weaponry" Ozpin commented, Six nodded.

"That's true, though my question is why they would be willing to work with the White Fang enough to trade weapons in the first place, the Covenant hate all of humanity." Six said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

"The White Fang aren't human." Ironwood commented, Six just snorted.

"You think that matters to them? Faunus are just humans with better senses; minor enhancements, that's all a Spartan is and they murdered us with no problem."

"Hmm... I guess they're desperate then."

"That's the best I've got." Six said, walking over to the next crate, a UNSC marked one this time. Flicking it open she looked inside.

"ODST armor? Well at least these are actually useful, well if the shields are still there..." Six muttered, looking down and seeing to her surprise that yes they where still attached.

"Huh, that may conquer my lack of an aura." Six muttered, turning around and asking.

"Permission to keep one of the suits sir?" Six asked, looking at professor Ozpin.

"Granted." He said as Six moved onto the next crate.

"Armor enhancements, kinda useless if you don't have a suit of Spartan armor so I get why they gave them these." Six said, moving onto next UNSC crate.

"Ah, Health boxes these things are useful." She commented, pulling out the octagonal white boxes, opening one up she showed them the contents.

"Those bandages have a potion on them which speeds up healing and those chemicals deal with burn wounds, get that stuff down you and you can recover from basically anything in a matter of moments." Six explained, handing the General a box so he could examine the contents.

"If these chemicals are as effective as you say then we should start producing them, our kingdoms military could make use of advanced healing technology like this." He commented, Six nodded.

"Yes, although it's limited to wounds, it wont help much against disease's." Six added.

"Still these will be useful, only two more crates left." Ozpin added, Six nodded, understanding she was meant to move on and deal with the other crates.

"Nothing but human weaponry, I've seen what you have, these are fairly standard." Six said, pulling out a standard assault rifle before replacing it.

"We might be able to get something from them." The General said, moving to look at the weapon.

"What's this slot for?" He asked, indicating a small indent on the underside of the gun.

"An AI slot, it's designed to store an AI unit." Six explained.

"Why would you want that? Why would a gun need to fire itself?" The General asked, inspecting the gun carefully.

"Some Marines use it to help with there slow reaction and not shoot there allies on the field, it's not perfect though, sometimes the AI ceases up and the gun wont fire, you can see why that's unwanted on a battle field."

"So it's useless?"

"No, just rarely used." Six said, moving over to the very last crate.

"I wonder what junk the Elites where trying to sell this time... No!" Six blurted as she saw what was inside the crate, her body spasmed and she dropped the lid with a crash, actually falling over and hitting the ground with a hard clash.

"What's wrong?!" The General said, running over to the downed Spartan.

"They should not have that!" Six blurted, forcing herself upright, her body shaking as she moved back over to the crate, maybe she'd seen it wrong.

"Have what!?" The General said, concerned as Six forced the lid open.

Know one looked in the crate for a few second, eventually Six worked up the nerve to look in.

Part of her really wished she hadn't.

"This... This..." Six said, her voice shaking as well as her body as she looked upon the contents.

"Six what is it?" Ozpin asked, reaching for his cane as he spoke.

"Six couldn't say it, she just moved out of the way, allowing the Headmaster and General to see inside the crate.

Why it affected Six the way it did was not apparent to the two men.

The thing that had so thoroughly freaked out Noble Six looked humanoid, but stood around seven foot tall, a black under suit coated with heavily scared gray armor, plenty of armor was strapped to the armor, the main sources of color on the armor was the red and white shoulder, a knife sheathed on the shoulder and the golden dome covering the face.

It just looked like a suit of armor a particularly tall Huntsman would wear, the only thing vaguely scary was the helmet, the golden visor had a skull carved into it, and even then it seamed excessive and not particularly scary, so why was a soldier in a war scared of...

Knowing more about Noble Six than General Ironwood Professor Ozpin worked what was wrong.

"Six, you knew who wore this armor..."

Six nodded, her teeth gritted as her eyes struggled to keep her rage contained. Nobel Six had had them on the brain ever since her visit to Locasta, but now seeing this... it was too much.

The rage was bubbling up from under the surface as she clenched her fists, her breathing getting heavier as she looked up at the armor, enraged that the Covenant had taken it, enraged that they had tried to trade it away, they had treated him like worthless trash, they had sold his armor, they had sold his set, the unique armor, the set he had customised, the set that belonged to him and know one else.

"Correct Sir, I knew the owner of this armor... He was Noble 4, he was the last member of Noble Team on Reach, he, he... He was going to stay, he was going to use the cannon... he was gonna let me get away, I, Maybe if I'd been there I would have survived, maybe if I had... Maybe if I... I, I, I don't know." Noble Six took one last deep breath before finally letting it out.

"He shouldn't be here! None of them should have been where they where! Why did I get the second chance! Why is he laying here with his corpse decimated, Why, **The hell is Emile's armor here! How the hell did those bastards get a hold of this!"** The Spartan cried, slamming her fist into the hard metal, her knuckles just hurt. The pain form her hand and her mental state not allowing her to block it out she started to cry.

"How... How... why..." Six shut down, falling over, the world turning back as her head met the ground with a hard crack.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Not Worth it Anymore

"Okay, our next match is between Noble Six and Jaune Arc, would the combatants please make there way to the ring." Glynda Goodwitch Said, pointing towards the ring. It was a week Since Six had discovered what the Covenant had found and Six was back in class, or at least a part of her was.

As the Two headed down to the ring Jaune looked nervous, Six didn't blame him; her early read of Jaune as a week fighter had been proven in the spars the two had fraught together had been pretty devastating for the blond boy. However he didn't look completely terrified like he had last time they'd fought, there was a determination in his eyes.

The two stood opposite each other, Six now clad in one of the ODST armor sets she'd taken; her hammer at the ready. (She'd elected against using the suit for sparing, it was unsafe to use and could easily kill someone when there aura ran out before she could realise, so it was sitting in the vehicle bay next to an orange motorcycle until she went out on a mission)

Jaune stood at the other end and had somewhat surprised Six by taking a much better stance. Not that she was actively thinking about this, it was something going on deep below, because at the moment there was only one thing she could focus on.

 _How did it get here? Why are they here? Why did they have it? What is going on?!_

"Erm, Six, the match has started..." Jaune said, Sic jolted, looking around at the board,

"Sorry." Six siad, shaking her head and reading her weapon, the pair charged at each other, Six made a swing at Jaune, who actually blocked it, getting shoved back a few feet but still standing.

He pulled his sword back and swung, surprised when it hit the armors force field.

"I see you got an upgrade." He commented, Six realized she'd just stood still long enough to let him take the swing and say that one liner.

 _Come on fight properly!_

Six swung again, but over stepped, allowing Jaune an easy strike to her legs, knocking the Spartan to the ground.

 _Dammit! Get a grip girl!_

Six forced herself up, making another clumsy swing with her hammer, before having it knocked back by Jaune's shield bash, Six staggered and Jaune was able to strike her helmet, the shield broke and her aura count officially hit the red.

"And that's the match, Congratulations Mr Arc, that was quite an improvement, Miss Six I suggest next time you reads your opponent more carefully." Glynda commented from the edge of the ring.

Six nodded as she forced herself upright, staggering out of the ring, retrieving her hammer and retaking her seat at the back of the room.

Meanwhile far below the Spartan teams's JNPR and RWBY where talking about the match as the next one started between Cardin and Dove.

"That was much better than last time Jaune!" Pyyrha cried, smiling brightly as Jaune sat back down.

"Yeah you kicked her ass!" Nora commented, happy to have the titled of best hammer user in the class back.

"It was defiantly better than the last time you two fought." Ruby added, smiling happily.

While the rest of the team congratulated Jaune Weiss looked up at the Spartan, who was just sitting in her chair, barley moving an inch she just looked at the wall just above the fight.

"Hey Weiss you haven't said a word." Ruby said, the cloak wearing girls words jolted her out of her contemplation of the mysterious Lavender haired girl.

"Yeah come, didn't Juane do better this time!" Yang added. Weiss simply rolled her eyes.

"The techniques you demonstrated where far superior than when you started, however I thinks it's obvious that Six is off her game." Weiss said, and was then surprised when Jaune agreed first.

"Yeah, I thought something was off, I mean she missed the start buzzer, how do you even do that?" Jaune asked, Blake finally commented on something.

"It was a noticeable downgrade for her usual reaction time."

the rest of the groups had to agree, Six was many things and lightning fast was usually one of them, she was so far the only person who'd seen a shadow clone in action and been able to change to hit to actual Blake before it had finished forming.

"Yeah, I guess it was weird she wasn't putting anywhere near the same amount of force into her swings that she normally does..." Nora said, before laughing with Glee as Cardin was knocked out of the ring by his team mate.

"Gee don't make my victory feel completely useless." Jaune muttered, while everyone on team JNPR tried to convice him that it was still a good victory Team RWBY spared the Spartan a few seconds.

"She has looked down about something after the food fight..." Ruby muttered.

"Somethings defiantly not right with her." Weiss commented, not sounding immensely interested in the Spartan as she watched the next fight.

"Yeah, think we should try to cheer her up?" Yang asked, Blake shot that down.

"Later, we have that thing to do tonight, you know, the thing thing." She muttered, the rest of her team nodded.

It was later that day, nearly dark out Six looked around her room, which had scene a few changes since she got back.

While her bed was still the same (Although she'd removed the matress because it was too soft, it now lay against the wall getting dusty) she'd added a few more things.

Her first set of home made armor was resting on an old mannequin she'd taken from a skip, Her current ODST set was lying in bits on her bookshelf as was the cosmetic stuff Coco had brought for her the last they'd been in town (Still untouched by the Spartan) However, one thing in her room was standing pride and center and it made Nobel Six happy to have it, even if she couldn't stand to look at it.

Emile's Armor had been moved up to her room, she refused to let it stay in the vault, it had been treated like trash too long as it was, she wasn't letting a technician pull it apart like a frog in a lab. So she'd moved it to her room.

That being said having a monument to her dead teammate in her room was not exactly what Six wanted, but she didn't know what else to do with it so she endeavoured to keep it and maintain it as best she could, even if it was useless to her.

But at the moment, Six couldn't help it, she needed to get out; she'd cleaned it as best she could and making it more shiny wasn't helping make it less of a presence in the room, so she'd decided to go to down town vale.

Six however mostly wanted to be alone, so she'd skipped going via an airship and gone for more of a Remnant mode of travel.

Which translates to flying via her mech suit.

Six admittedly wasn't entirely convinced that her Power armor was legal, however she knew it was legal to carry a weapon around with her as she was a huntress in training and had a license to carry one, so in theory this was okay.

Not that Six was not consciously thinking about this, she had just wanted to get out of Beacon.

This did mean taking a relatively long flight into town, so long it was dark by the time she got there, but she didn't care, just being in her suit made her feel better, and the fact she was far away form that armor...

Well Six was far happier when she entered Vale than she had been when she left for it.

She set the mech down on the road and began walking, wondering how much she was standing out, she didn't see anyone else, which was also kind of nice for the Spart, just her alone in quite vale, all of her problems a good few miles away, nothing to worry about.

Well until two familiar looking figures broke through the window of a near by warehouse.

 _Whats Blake doing here? And who is that other guy here with her?_

Six's thoughts where interrupted when it became apparent exactly why her classmates had felt the need to burst through a window. Because something much bigger had just broken through the wall.

A hulking mass of gray steal charged out, clearly in pursuit of Blake and whoever the Monkey Faunus was.

Six made a split second decision, she charged after her class mate, activating the speakers on her suit she called to Blake.

"Blake whats going on!" She yelled, the thrusters on suit opening, forcing her along the ground faster than her suit could run, forced to stay on the main roads and follow the pair fleeing on the rooftops.

"Six!?" Blake cried, looking down at the girl in the mech suit. The Monkey boy yelled the answer Six wanted (Blake was busy with her scroll.)

"Bad guy, he has a robot!" he yelled, a quick glance at the White Fang logos stenciled on the mech confirmed what he said, so Six yelled back:

"Do you have a plan!"

"Yes, we just need the rest of us!" Blake yelled, before yelling into her Scroll.

"Guys we need help! If you can hear us make you way to..."

"Heeeeeellllllllpppp!" The Monkey guy yelled, drowning out whatever Blake was trying to yell, Six hoped her team mates where near physic.

Well at least some of them didn't need to be to help out, Yang and another boy Six didn't recognize shot out of the ally on the bike Six's Mech was sat next to in the beacon garage.

To make sure Six wasn't mistaken as hostile Six shot Yang a thumbs up with the suits one hand, Yang seamed to get the point and nodded, before the group moved onto the motor way.

Six followed Yang and her friend while Blake and the Fuanus she was with took the direct route, as did the hostile mech.

The group was on the motor way, Six had a minor panic attack when she saw that the road still had civilians on it.

"We cant fight it here!" She yelled, putting her canon away, she wasn't going to fight with live ammunition on a road filled with innocent people; the most she could do was dodge all the oncoming traffic.

"You can't! Neptune slow it down!" Blake yelled, Neptune (the Blue haired boy on Yang's Bike) nodded.

"Got it!" He yelled, pulling his trident of his weapon of his back, some kind of electrical canon, however he quickly employed the kind of mechanical insanity Six was used to seeing come out of Remnant and transformed it into a long spear with a glowing blue end.

Neptune jumped with all his strength and impaled it in the mech's back, thankfully its limited articulation got in the way and it was unable to directly dislodge Neptune, so it elected to throw him off.

"Neptune hang on!" The Monkey accompanying Blake yelled, putting his hands together he summoned two clones of himself, which charged forwards and caught the Blue haired boy. The clone worked, but upon the return trip them, the target and there master where hit by the mech's flailing arms, both of them sent flying.

Without pausing Six dived of after them, grabbing one under each arm (The clones had disappeared by now) using the thrusters built into her mech's chest to force them both back up and onto the road.

"Do you guys even have a plan!" Six yelled as the Sun clambered from under the mech's arm and took a perch on its back.

"We've got a plan! We just need..." Blake yelled before Weiss' voice interrupted via her scroll.

"Blake I'm in position!"

Six saw what the Heiress meant; standing atop the the next overhead was Weiss, who quickly jumped down, creating a wall of ice across the road, smiling Six understood the intent.

"Hold on you two!" She yelled, before jumping into the air and firing on the mecha just before it hit the Ice, the shock wave forced the machine through the force fielded road barrier and sent the thing of the road and crashing down to the ground on which the road was built on.

It was in the air having just shot the opponents mecha that Six realized something, flying into Vale had severely burnt through her jets fuel tank and it had chosen to run out at that exact moment, the machine plummeted, the shock absorbers in the legs could have handled the fall, but unfortunately the machine hit the next road down, or at least one leg did, the other missed completely and continued its ground wards journey unhindered.

What this meant was that the machine began to tilt, crashing down onto its right side, the mechanical hand was crushed as was the main shoulder canon.

Six forced herself up, ignoring the pounding head ache and severe bruising on her right side, she scraped the Gatling gun down the ruined right hand, forcing the destroyed mech's hand of to free her hand.

Six tested her hand, it was hurting but not broken, she could still use it, Six then looked around, the ground was clouded in steam, the helmets filters however let her identify Team RWBY (Six was amusing the other heat signature was Ruby, however she wasn't on the road, maybe she was on her way over?) and the two she'd been carrying (Both of whom seamed to have been smart enough to jump off during the fall)

Six looked around, unfurling the grip on the Gatling gun Six grabbed it with her exposed hand, moving around she tracked her team mates, she didn't want to shoot them and she couldn't see the mecha, ergo she decided to wait until the smoke cleared.

Eventually after a volley of fire and several loud explosions the smoke was clear enough for Six to see what was going on.

Six saw the mecha, The monkey Faunus and Yang where going for close quarters, each of them running in and jumping around, shooting there various forms of shot guns at the machine, with Ruby, Neptune and Blake giving covering fire while Weiss ran around creating Gliphs to help her team mates.

Six readied the tri mounted cannon on her shoulder, Six aimed it and her Gatling gun.

"Guys get to cover!" Six yelled, seeing her weaponry powering up Yang and the Faunus dived out of the way as Six unleashed her first round of gattling fire.

The enemy machine raised its arm to block the cockpit while it ran at Six. Six smiled and unleashed a missile on the mech's arm, blowing the thing off before jumping backwards and out of the way of the other ground pound.

Six unleashed another missile on the mechs cockpit, the armor cracked and the main face plate was blow off, but sadly the suit was still working. Its one remaining arm transformed, the hand retracting back and unleashing a volley of plasma at the Spartans suit.

It hit the force field as Six unleashed more missiles, however this time the mech suit ducked smashed her suit directly with its fist.

The force of the punch shattered the force field and sent the machine flying backwards smashing into the support pillar for the road overhead.

Six managed to bring the missile launcher online, she fired... and her heart fell as she realised she was out of ammo. Six realised it was like when she was back on Reach, she was going to die and nothing was going to help her.

" **Leave her alone!"**

Or so Six thought. Yang had seen what had happened, her eyes had gone red as She exploded across the battle feild, driving an explosive fist into the machine and smashing it to bits.

Thankfully thee Blonds charge had payed of, Six was still breathing and the driver was staggering to his feet. Six quickly turned the Gatling gun onto the driver.

"Stand down." She said, the coldness in her voice apparent as she aimed at the mans chest.

"Now now, lets not be hasty here..." he said, his hands raised as he backed up.

"Then stop moving." Yang growled, discharging her gauntlets as the new shells where loaded into it, she was backed up by the rest of Team RWBY and the other two lining up next to her, all of them having the weapons pointed at the man, he barley flinched looking at this.

"Hmm... bit of a pinch, I hate to be a pain Neo but could you help a guy out?" He asked.

Six went to fire but her HUD lit up, warning her that another heat signature had just entered the Combat Zone.

The figure landed in front of the man using her umbrella to shield the pair from the shot Ruby had let out.

Six looked at the new combatant, she was short with brown and pink hair, wearing a white outfit and smiling cruelly.

"Neo could you...?" The man asked, for a split second Six wondered why this man would have this girl fight for him, but her helmet twigged her onto what was going on when the twos heat signatures vanished. Six frantically looked around for the pair and a second later she saw them fly by, Six readied her Gatling gun, only to hear the familiar click that came with a gun having no bullets.

 _Dammit!_

Yang smashed into them and then looked up at them from the shattered remains of there duplicates as the pair shot passed.

Six could only watch as the two escaped in there Bullhead, Six was used up and know one else had a weapon that could shoot down an aircraft.

"Well I guess he got a new henchman." Yang Commented, Six was surprised; they'd met that guy before?

"Yeah, I guess she really made our plans... Fall apart!" Weiss commented, Ruby and Six both snorted. Everyone else looked angry as they turned to leave.

"No, just no." Yang commented, Six looked at the slightly disheartened girl.

"I thought it was funny." She commented, heading out to retrieve the rest of her suit, she needed the hand back so she could fix it.

Six disembarked her suit to retrieve the arm, The Monkey Faunus surprised her by walking over to help her pick up the arm, which was helpful because the thing weighed about 120KG.

"Thanks erm..." Six said, really not wanting to call the guy Monkey Faunus to his face.

"The names Sun and wow this thing is heavy!" He declared as he lifted the thing, he was struggling under the weight of the thing, Six was just infuriated she couldn't lift it.

 _You used to be able to flip a car with your bare hands, now you cant lift one hand._

Six ignored that voice as Neptune came over to help Sun.

"Wow lady, this thing is heavy, what did you make it out of?" The blue haired boy asked as he looked down at the Spartan, who just looked back at him.

"Its a Titanium alloy, its going to be a pain to fix up back at Beacon." Six commented, hoping she wouldn't have to replace the armor with something else that wasn't as strong.

"I'll help!" A chipper voice commented, Six turned, surprised to see Ruby standing next to her.

"Huh?" Six said, her brain stalling for a second.

"I wanna help! I've never worked on a robot suit before!" She beamed, Six thought about it for a second.

"Sure." Six said, she'd seen the girl working on her complex over designed death scythe before the chances of Ruby not knowing what she was doing was incrediably low.

"Great, so I had some ideas about how you could fit more weaponry onto that arm, or a better hand, if we increased the wrist joint it may..."

Six let the girl trail of as they walked (apparently heading to some noodle bar Sun knew) as the Spartan looked around, she'd have been dead now if Yang hadn't saved her, it was funny, the armor she was driving (With the arm tied to the back) had brought a bit of home back to her and she was happy to have it. However, having these people around her, and not just then, JNPR and CFVY, people who'd looked out for her, been there, been there for her...

Six knew Noble team was going to be a scar in her memory, she couldn't ever forget them, they would be with her forever, but, she had new people to cover her, new people she could trust.

Six couldn't help but grin, she had her gear from Reach, and now she had something in Remnant, for the first time Six didn't feel out of place, Six was now home, there was something here for her and as she looked around she made a decision.

She was never going to let any of them die, she would do everything in her power to protect them.

Six would always have protected her team, but ultimately she'd let Jorge blow himself up, she'd left Emile alone, she'd left Carter in the plane. While she couldn't have done any thing then, looking around she knew full well she was never going to act like that again, she was going to protect everyone here.

As she ordered her noodles her thoughts turned to her friends armor up in her room. It didn't hold the same weight it had earlier that day, she was sure she could look at it again; she could live with it and remember them. She would always remember Noble team, but the memory's felt lighter and that made Six happy, she could move on, she would be stronger, stronger for them, stronger for the people here.

But that was for later, for now she had noodles to eat.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 Something I need to do.

Six awoke that morning to her scroll going of. Six rolled sleepily out of bed to grab the devise and swipe it.

"Hey Six is this you?" Coco's familiar voice asked over the phone; Six listened in the background and she could defiantly loud music blaring loudly.

"Yes." Six said, swinging herself out of bed and rubbing her eyes to try and clear the sleep out of them.

"Great, so we need some help with something, do you still have that tall mech suit?" She asked hopefully, Six yawned before replying.

"Yes, but its damaged at the moment, what do you want it for anyway?"

"Oh we where just having some _Hic!_ difficulty reaching the ceiling to decorate it, we kiinda hoped your mech could reach them." Six glanced at her clock before scowling at the image on her Scrolls screen.

"Coco it's three in the morning." The unpleasant Spartan said bluntly.

"Yeeeaaah sooow!" The Fashionista replied, Six heard her stumble; the parts snapping together in her brain.

"Why are you decorating at three in the morning?"

"Okaayy... so here's the story..."

"Coco your drunk." Six responded before she could blurt something.

"No I'm not..."

Six hung up at that point, before quickly dialling up Velvet. Part of her was concerned she was going to wake up the Rabbit girl, but thankfully she responded too quickly for someone who was asleep.

"Six, this is a surprise." Velvet answered, Six could hear the same music in the background.

"Yes, tell me where are you and Coco?"

"We're at a Club in down town Vale, why?" Velvet responded.

"Because apparently Coco needs a robot suit to help with decorating." Six then heard Velvet groan.

"Urghhhh! We not even starting on that for another few days! I'm sorry Six, I think Coco's had enough to drink."

"Hey Velvet!" A very drunk Coco called in the background, the two talking ignored her.

"So you're decorating something?" Six asked.

"Yes, we volunteered to set up the Autumn Dance."

"The what?"

"The... Coco get off me!" A disgruntled Faunus responded, Six could just about hear a grunting the girl tried to force her leader off her.

"But you're so cute... My little ra..." Six then heard a 'Thunk' as Velvet relaxed.

"And now Coco's on the floor, great of all the days to have a date..."

"Can you get her back on your own?" Six asked, wondering if she should head down, then she remembered how much hear strength had dropped since losing her armor.

 _Note to self, bulk up._

"Yeah, its not exactly the first time I've had to do this." Velvet muttered, the tone in her voice implying immense frustration.

"If your sure, though you mentioned a dance of some kind?" Six said, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Oh right that, yeah there's a big dance every year, we volunteered to help decorate the hall for it, but we don't have to start for another few days and we don't need your help with that, you bring your mech into the Ballroom and you're gonna break the floor. Coco just wants to try it." Velvet explained, Six would hear her heaving her leader up off the floor in the background.

"Well tell her no, that things one of a kind and I'm not risking it." Six stated bluntly. Stretching, she was awake now and wouldn't be getting back to sleep anytime soon, so she might as well take advantage of the gym being open all hours and get some work in.

"Okay, hope the next time we talk its not because Coco decided to get completely blitz off her mind."

Six nodded in agreement, then remembered she was using an audio only device.

"Yeah, same, see you later." The Scroll beeped to indicate the call was over and Six dressed in her work out clothes before heading of towards the Gym.

Given it was three in the morning (3:18 if you wanted to be precise) Six was expecting the Gym to be empty, to her surprise this wasn't the case.

Someone else was apparently also awake at his time, Six stuck her head through the door.

"Yang?" She asked in surprise, seeing the Blond smashing away at a training dummy. Unlike a regular training dummy the ones at Beacons fought back, each arm that stuck out would strike back, eventually forcing you to fight about eight opponents at once.

While an effective training tool Yang was crushing it, using so much strength behind each hit that it was starting to spark.

"I think you've done enough damage to the poor machine." Six commented. Yang stopped and turned to look at Six, her eyes the same burning red they'd been when she'd destroyed the White Fangs Mech.

"Hey Six, I see I'm not the only one having trouble sleeping." She said, her eyes turning back to there usual purple colouring as she looked at Six.

"Yeah, Coco decided to call me." Yang looked surprised.

"Really, why was she calling you?"

"She was drunk, Velvets dragging her back as we speak."

"Huh, why you though?" Yang said, raising an eyebrow.

"I have a robot suit, she doesn't." Six responded, Yang's eyebrow raised even higher.

"You sure that's the only reason?"

"Only one I got, why do you have a theory?" Six asked tilting her head to look at Yang while moving one of the dummy's around.

"Nothing beyond a rumour..." She said slowly, a small smile breaking across her face. Six groaned, she didn't set much store by rumours.

"What is it?"

"Well word on the street is that Coco's... playing for the other team?"

Six looked surprised to hear this, though not for the reason Yang thought.

"Wait that was meant to be a secret?" Six asked confused.

"Six are you two..." Yang started to say.

"No off course not! But I was on a team with Coco and Velvet for three months, its not hard to spot."

Yang looked sceptical, as far as she knew Coco and Velvet where just teammates, nothing romantic.

"You sure?" Yang asked.

"Unless its natural to smile serenely as the girl next to you falls asleep, fall asleep in each others arms, spend the days when the conditions are too bad to head outside cuddling together while we watch stuff on out Scrolls, playfully slap the Rabbit girls ass, have the two show almost superhuman dedication to each other; Oh and the most compelling bit of evidence, Velvet and Coco where at a club on something Velvet used the word 'Date' to describe, in which Coco hugged Velvet and has now passed out, Oh and Velvets willing to drag her back on her back to get her back to school, something which is going to take at least an hour and involve the two making physical contact with each other for all that time."

Yang just looked at Six.

"I notice things."

"Huh, that would explain how they act in class..." Yang muttered.

"Yes it would."

"I wonder if they'll ask each other out to the dance?"

Six groaned.

"What not a dance fan?"

"No, I just had Coco calling me to ask if she could use my Mech to help decorate and yeah... Not a dance person... I think."

"What do you mean 'I think?'" Yang asked, looking at the Spartan confused.

"I can't remember the last time I did it. It doesn't sound like my kind of thing, I was gonna spend the night taking advantage of the Gym being empty to get a unique work out on."

Yang just looked at Six like she'd just said her Orangutan ate her Panties.

"Your going to skip the Dance, a thing that happens once in a year to work out!?" The Blond cried.

Six nodded,

"Yes, I need four dummy's for my preferred workout." Six explained, having set up four fighting back training dummy's around her, before activating them, fighting four dummy's at once. Yang watched, both impressed and incredulous.

"This thing only happens once a year and your gonna skip it?"

"You already said basically that."

"And you haven't given a good reason why your ignoring it."

"Do I really need one, I don't want to go?"

"But you can't say why you don't want to go."

"Because its not my thing..."

"Didn't you also say you couldn't remember the last time you went to one?"

"What's your point?"

"How do you know its not your thing if you can't remember doing it."

Yang's words actually caused Six to stop and think, she still wasn't big on the idea of the dance, but she could try it...

"You may have a point..." Six muttered, Yang's face split into an enormous grin.

"Great, do you have a dress yet?"

Six just looked at her.

"Good point, I'm getting mine next Saturday, come with me and I'll hook you up with something."

"Not again..." Six muttered. Remembering the last time she'd gone into town to buy something she'd been intercepted by Coco and it had taken two days to get a few things, she did not like wasting her time like that.

"Ah it'll be fun, come on!" Yang beamed, Six thought about it for a second, she could do it, but...

"Fine, but I want help with something once the suns up." Six said, Yang nodded.

"Sure, what do you need?"

"I need you to watch my back while I do something in the Emerald Forest."

"So, why are we out here?" Yang asked, wishing Six had been slightly less precise with the whole 'Once the suns up' thing, like say, wait about another five hours so they could get sleep.

"I need to do something, but its gonna be slow so I need someone to watch my back in case the Grimm show up." Six explained, shoving through a branch and finding something appropriate.

"Okay, keep watch while I work on something." Six said, pulling something out from her ODST armor, a knife she'd borrowed from another suit of armor she kept in her room.

She looked up at the tree, it was huge and gnarled, looking like it had been through hell and was still alive. Six smiled as she unsheathed the knife and stuck it into the tree, slowly carving something into the tree.

"Okay to the next one." She said, admiring her handiwork.

Six smiled as she found what she was looking for, this tree was missing a huge chunk, its upper branches looking like they'd been struck by lightning at some point or been on the bad end of a Huntresses weapon. The tree was still standing, but the missing chunk couldn't be overlooked.

"You got my back?" Six asked, Yang nodded as Six set to work.

Six had to force her way to the next one, kicking through a particularly stubborn set of branches to reach a grotto behind it.

"You okay back there?" Yang asked, peeking through the hole Six had forced her way through.

"Yeah, I just think I finally found something more stubborn than you." Six replied, she was trying to make a joke, but clever witticisms where never her thing; so it was just... bad.

"And now I know why you think Weiss is funny." Yang shot back.

Rolling her eyes Six carved her next message.

"Do we have to use the one at the top of the cliff?" Yang asked, winded as Six insisted on getting to the tree on top of the cliff face they where climbing.

"Yes." The Spartan shot back, heaving herself up to the next hand grip, finally able to crave her message.

"But there are like a ton of other ones growing nearer the ground!" Yang retorted.

"That's not the point." Six responded, heaving herself into a better position so she could grip the tree properly.

"Well whatever 'the point' is find it fast, I don't fancy a fight up here."

Six nodded, figuring the guy would rather have something simple anyway.

The last one was the hardest to find, Six and Yang walked for quite a few hours, Yang wondering what Six was looking for.

Six thought the same thing.

Nothing seamed right, nothing matched. Six was actually worried as the grey clouds began to cover the sky, but she would keep on going, nothing really stopped him, nothing was gonna stop her.

But the thunderstorm was defiantly going to make her pause for a second, if only for Yang's safety.

The pair found a cave to hide in.

"Well come on lets get in here..."

Six stuck her arm in front of Yang.

"Get your gauntlets ready, last time I went into a cave in this forest it had a giant Death Stalker in it." Six explained, slotting Emile's knife into its sheath and retrieving her hammer from her back.

(One cave clearing later)

"it's a shame these things dissolve shortly after death, I'd love something to eat around now." Six said, watching the remains of the Grimm disintegrate.

" Knowing Grimm they'd be poisonousness." Yang countered, leaning back on the wall of the Cave.

"Your probably right." Six said, leaning nearer the entrance looking out upon the small clearing that was connected to the Cave.

"Not that I'm not enjoying being outside in the rain, but I gotta ask, why are we out here?"

"Because I wanted to be out here and you agreed to watch my back." The Spartan replied, staring out as the rain poured.

"Yeah but why did you want to be out here, what are you even doing, I get that your doing something to do with trees, but I don't know what." Said Yang, Six looked at her, wondering what to say, in the end she settled for something resembling the truth.

"I'm marking graves, for some friends I used to know..." Six admittedly wasn't sure if people you'd only known for a few days counted as proper friends, but she thought that was the title they deserved.

"Six I'm sorry..." Yang said, looking shocked, Six shook her head.

"Don't be, I'm doing this because it feels wrong to leave them unmarked, I just need one more, shame this guy is proving hard to find something appropriate..." Six muttered, turning to look at Yang as she shuffled slightly further into the cave.

"Why? What was he like?" Yang asked, Six thought for a second.

"Well, as silly as this might sound, he was a badass edge lord." Six said, as she expected Yang snorted.

"Seriously?" She asked through half laughter.

"Yup, dude literally carved a skull into his helmet, hell when he died he was stabbed in the back..." Six was laughing now, but still glad she had her helmet on so Yang couldn't see the tears. " ...and the dude still managed to turn around and stick his knife in its neck before giving in!" Six was laughing now.

"Wow this dude sounds metal as hell, wish I could have met him!" Yang said, Six nodded.

"You'd have liked each other, I can tell, actually you'd have liked a lot of them..." Six said.

"Six, if its okay, what happened after that?"

Six thought about it for a second, before eventually answering.

"Well, what you have to understand is that this is insane to me and I lived through it, somehow..."

"What do you mean?" Yang asked, moving forwards, rubbing her hands together as she looked at Six.

"After Emile... After Emile someone needed to man the cannon to protect the Pillar of Autumn, that was an airship from back home, it needed to get out, Emile had decided to stay... but he couldn't, so I chose to stay and do it." Six leant back, looking up at the ceiling, removing her helmet, allowing Yang to see her red eyes and the streaks down her face, even if she did still have a smile on her face.

"Well, It worked, I saw the Autumn leave, the problem was, well, I couldn't get out of there as well."

Yang looked shocked.

"Wait they couldn't come around and get you?"

Six shook her head.

"No, they couldn't get around, we where being overwhelmed by an opposing fleet; if the Autumn wanted to get pout it had to run, I knew it when I stayed, I felt it was right, the rest of Noble Team was already gone, well, Jun might still be alive, in all honesty I have no idea what happened there."

Six smiled.

"But ultimately, it was gone and I was still there, so I decided to fight... It wouldn't achieve anything, they where already burning it, it was just a a few stragglers moping up the remains, apparently not content with death via fire." Six knew a Glassing and fire wasn't exactly the same thing, but it was the closest thing she could say without telling Yang about the UNSC or her Bizarre origins.

"I fought for as long as I could, but ultimately I couldn't keep going, I gave out, I caved in..." Six then let out her loudest laugh yet, a look into the Girls Orange eyes showed a mad fire burning behind them as she laughed. " ...but they made a mistake! They tried to kill a Spartan! Spartans never die!"

Six drove her fist into her chest piece, letting out a triumphant laugh.

"Where just... Missing in action..." Six trailed off, the cold fact was that four Spartans had died, and mostly for nothing, but Six shook her head, she wasn't going to cry, she was gonna keep moving forward for them, not use them as an excuse to fall apart.

"Six... I'm sorry..." Yang said, Six shook her head.

"Don't be, they did there duty, everyone on Reach would have done the same, I was going to do the same, I just got lucky enough to wake up here."

Yang looked confused about something.

"You sure its only you?"

Six started.

"Wha?"

"Are you sure your the only one here? I mean if you can survive... whatever happened, actually what did happen?"

Six answered by pulling her shirt up enough to show the scar on her chest.

"Stabbed through the torso by a blade made of pure plasma."

"Ouch, but I'm just saying, if you can survive that, couldn't your friends?"

Six sat there, thinking about it, before ultimately saying.

"No, They couldn't have, I'm the only one who made it, even then it would be a waste to look, if I went of to look for them I'd be ignoring all the people who need me now, here." Six then looked up, the fire burning brighter behind her eyes now.

"I will not lose another team, I can't, any of you, I couldn't stand it..." Six forced the tears to stay inside, she was going to resist them this time...

Yang moved forwards, pulling Six into a hug, Six was surprised, but didn't fight it, it felt nice to have this... For a split second a fracture of an older woman hugging her burst into her mind for a split second, that memory was old, before Reach, before being a Spartan, before being Nobel Six...

The fact there even was something there amazed Six, but that was the past, she had no chance of finding out what happened to the other woman, and she had new people here now, new people to look after her when she needed it.

The hug eventually ended with a loud crack and crash behind them, the pair turned to look outside the cave, a tree had fallen, revealing something behind it.

"Hey Yang, does that rock kinda look like a skull to you?" Six asked, observing the now Visible rock.

"Does a bit, why?"

"Because it's perfect!" Six beamed, walking out, ignoring the rain and picking up a hard looking rock from the ground. Carefully she lined it up with the knife and began to chisel her last message into the rock.

Her work done she turned to Yang, who haddn't ventured from the cave, but her gauntlets where on and she was in a crouching stance, clearly ready to jump out if Six needed the help.

"Okay, I'm done, we can head back now!"

Six felt content, the weight that had lifted a few days ago was now gone, it was still there above her, but the chances of it falling back onto her had been reduced, she could talk about them and even had, it felt good, she smiled as she headed for her second proper nights sleep since she arrived on Remnant, knowing that her tribute to Noble team would last at least for a while.

In fact now only one thought was bubbling around in Six's subconscious, one question Yang had put there and the Spartan couldn't get out.

 _What about the Covenant..._

Meanwhile in the forest the markings Six had made where currently readable under the wet moonlight.

On an old gnarled tree was written: Noble 5 Jorge-052 Gave everything for his home.

Another smaller tree that was missing a branch you could read:

Noble 2 Kat-320 Nothing but bad luck could finish her.

A tree hidden inside a grotto had:

Noble 3 Jun-266 Never seen, never missed, I hope you keep going strong for us.

A tree standing above many others had:

Noble 1 Carter-259 Thank you Sir, for everything, I wont waste what you gave me.

And finally, carved into a solid rock (which strongly resembled a Skull) was written

Noble 4 Emile-239 Hardest Bastard I ever knew, bested by know one, even the one who stabbed him.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Getting Dirty with Ruby

"Sorry I took so long Six! Ren made pancakes and then I couldn't find my cape, then Blake and Weiss started arguing and I had to stop them, then Yang..."

Six stuck her hand in Ruby's mouth to shut her up.

"It's fine Ruby, I've been waiting for the diagnostics to run, at least you apologise for taking ages." Six said, scowling at the Beacon academy laptop, which had taken several hours to run a fifteen minute diagnostic.

"Luckily the Suits Computer chip contained the diagnostics so I know what's wrong, at least to some degree, although you wanted to make some improvements?" The Spartan asked, looking at the red head as she nodded.

"Yeah, I've always wanted to work on a mech suit!" Ruby exclaimed, moving over to the table where the broken hand and canon were laid out in bits.

"Well I'll take every bit of help I can get, doing an overall takes a lot of time and it helps to have someone to help, I mean the guy who gave me this hammer was helpful to me." Six said, imagining one of the many Brutes she'd killed over the years falling.

"Wait you didn't make your weapon? I mean I know you found the suit, but your hammer isn't yours?"

Six shook her head.

"Nope, found it, one of the Brutes (there a Bandit tribe) dropped it and I took it, knocked his friends head clean off." Six liked half truths, she had done that its just Brutes weren't bandits and the Brute had dropped it because she stabbed it in the guts. They where nice because she was bad at proper lies and they kept her story consistent.

"Huh, weird..." Ruby muttered, Six tilted her head in surprise.

"Why is it weird? most of us took weapons of the ground at some point, it was a good way of getting around running out of ammo." Six explained.

"No, its just at Signal we had to make our own weapons." Ruby explained, pulling out Crescent Rose.

"It still hurts my brain trying to imagine the process of you conceiving that, let alone making it."

"Oh it's based of my Uncles weapon, though his Scythe could become a sword as well as a gun" Ruby said with a smile, Six just groaned.

 _Why can't a weapon just be one thing! Why does everything also have to be a gun!_

"Sure, of course, any reason you based it of that?"

"Oh he taught me how to use it, and it payed off! They let me in two years early actually." Ruby explained, Six nodded, Ruby did look younger than anyone else in the academy, but then again so was Six, somehow.

"That's impressive." Six commented, Ruby looked down for a second.

"Yeah... its pretty great."

Six raised an eyebrow.

"That was not a happy student I heard, is there a problem with moving early?"

"It's just, awkward, there's a target painted on your back you know?"

Six just shook her head.

"Nope, moving up with skill was just how being a Spartan worked, age was irrelevant so long as you could do what you needed to." Six explained, showing Ruby the diagnostics.

"Really? That's so weird!" Ruby exclaimed, Six just shrugged.

"It was how we did things, anyway what's your suggestions for how we improve this, because I was just going to rebuild it."

Ruby looked excited as she printed out the blue prints for the mech's arm and began drawing all over them in red maker. Six rather suspected the UNSC tech team that built the suit would have a heart attack seeing there design being defaced like this, Six was just hoping that it made sense to Ruby.

"Okay, so here my basic plan, we rebuild the hand, but the we mount a missile pod onto the arm, but the missile pod can unfurl into a sword which turns into an axe which turns into a hammer..."

Six just looked at her.

"How?" She eventually asked, looking in befuddlement at the girl.

"Well its simple really, if we make it out of fifty nine complex and individual parts we can..."

"Ruby, I feel this is overboard, I just wanted the hand back and perhaps another gun, I'm not sure all this is relevant..."

"Of course this is relevant, you need more weapons; I mean its a giant robot!" Ruby protested, grabbing another piece of paper and scrawling blue prints on how this was meant to work.

"Its a suit of power armor and its heavy enough on its own as it is, It doesn't need fifty more weapons pulling it down, it does a good enough job of that on its own." Six said, thinking back to how quickly she'd ran out of jet fuel.

"Ffiiiine! But you need a melee weapon." Ruby pouted, Six looked confused.

"Okay, why?"

"Well you need something close ranged, I mean if your to close to your own explosions you could damage the suit, plus its more precsise, that would definatly help."

Six thought about it, the armor was surprisingly manoeuvrable and she hadn't been able to take action on the motor way because of her current load out, perhaps having a hammer or sword of some kind could be nice.

Six grabbed another sheet and began scrawling something all over it, it was a crude redraw of the suit, but this time with some minor changes, the wrecked shoulder canon had been replaced by an even more powerful Dust canon, which would be longer so it had a more sniper is angle to it, the chest had two electrical canons attached for dealing with machines or stunning human/Faunus opponents, a second hand had been mounted under the Gatling gun, the amount of grenades it was carrying had been doubled as the second leg could now be a viable grip and most notably was the sword stuck on the arm previously dedicated to being just a hand.

Ruby looked over Six's plans.

"Nice, although I've been examining the guns on this thing and we should probably do a complete refit on every weapon."

Six thought about it for a second.

"Yes that might be wise, I adjusted my hammer so it was easier to power, I'm assuming you want to go for a similar idea?"

Ruby nodded vigorously.

"Yeah, also I feel like we should consider replacing the armor, I've never seen this metal before, it might be hard for you to replace, Six drew the line there.

"No, I'll replace what I have to but I don't want to put a significant amount of time into something when I don't have to."

"Fair enough, anyway, lets get to it!"

The next few hours flew by, the pair admittedly didn't achieve much beyond taking the machine apart enough to get at the weapons, but a start was a start.

"I swear that thing wasn't always so heavy." Six muttered, taking a bite of her sandwich, looking at he machine with most of its armor removed, it was weird to say, but seeing the machine apart... it looked wrong.

"Eh, its amazing how quickly things pile up, the original Crescent Rose weighed about half a ton or something, I could barley lift the thing, okay I was ten..." Ruby said, munching on cookies, however this was interrupted because Six chose that time to start chocking. Ruby had to intervene by slamming the girl on the back until the sandwich was removed.

"Ten!" The Spartan spluttered, looking at Ruby in complete bemusement.

"Yeah, all first years are ten at Signal, why is that also odd were your from?"

"No, not really..." Six thought, remembering her first day of training when she was five. "...it just seams weird to let a ten year old handle red hot metal."

 _Like RPG launchers are much better._

"Is it? Your weird Six."

"Well your not wrong." Six muttered, looking at Ruby's meal, something that had been bothering her for a while escaped her lips.

"Ruby why are you only eating cookies?"

"Huh, Cause I like cookies." The girl responded like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"But don't you have to maintain a proper diet to stay in good health?"

"Err... Not really..."

Six just looked at her, her mouth agape.

"This world is fucking nuts." Six muttered under her breath.

Once the two had finished eating they got back to work, by the end of the day they had started on the refit, mostly by removing the Gatling gun and replacing it with a different version of the similar weapon, also added was a targeting lazer and the base for the second hand.

"This took longer than I was expecting it to..." Ruby muttered, looking at there work, Six looked at her.

"Ruby this is one of the most complex suits in the galaxy, the fact we've achieved what we did is impressive." Six said, personally quite impressed that they'd made it this far.

"I know, I just feel bad leaving someone's weapon in pieces; its like leaving there arm in bits..."

Six was once again baffled by Ruby.

"Ruby... it's a weapon, how is it like someone's arm?"

"A weapons a part of any Huntress, I mean they're an extension of ourselves; we'd be dead without them, how can you be so disconnected to your machine?!" Ruby asked.

"Because throwing away my weapons and swapping them out for something else is the main reason I didn't get slaughtered back home." Six explained, remembering her nearly constant abandonment of the standard UNSC assault rifle and pistol.

"So you didn't get attached to anything?" Ruby asked, Six nodded.

"I had too, if you didn't you'd run out of ammunition and get shot from every direction in a minute."

"Yeah but, Six did you own everything?" Six thought about it for a second.

"Well my armor was basically mine, but other than that... er..." Six suddenly realised this basic fact about herself, she really didnt own anything did she... But then again she didn't need to, she was a soldier.

 _But even soldiers have homes to go back to, what did you have?_

 _A glassed over rock, two of them now._

"Six that's horrible..."

"I was fed and had what I needed, what more can I ask for?" Six said. Ruby looked at her, her face completely blank.

"Quite a lot actually, its basic human decency, Six where you even paid for what you did?"

"No." Six was a Spartan, you lived for the UNSC and you where expected to die for it, no need for pay if you never left.

"Six... you where a slave?"

"No I wasn't, it was my choice." The Spartan looked at Ruby, why was this so hard for her to get?

"Could you leave?"

"..."

"Because if you couldn't leave and weren't getting paid then you where basically a slave."

"No I wasn't!"

"You kinda where"

"No I'm not!"

"You are and you Still are, The UNSC saw you as nothing but a tool, you where nothing to them, they didn't care, that bastard used you!"

"Shut up!"

"No, they manipulated you, what they did was unexceptionable!"

"We where at war!"

"Not when the program started! Face it, the Spartans where made as ONI's slaves!"

"Shut up!"

"You know what they did, you where given a choise but where they! The first ones! You know what you saw, you know what they did to them!"

"I said shut up!"

"No, they gave you that armor, but it doesn't mean anything good, its just a chain holding you back!"

"It made me better!"

"Yeah and put you under there control!"

"No it didn't, what the hell are you on about!"

"Face it Six, your life meant nothing before you got here."

Six looked up at her.

"Your wrong, I saved lives."

"Didn't save them did you, they might still be alive if you hadn't been..."

"I'm done blaming myself for that!"

"Are you? Because I'm not so sure you are, why else did you have to bury them!"

"Because they fought and got killed, it was a war! It happens! They deserved a funeral!"

"And they got some carvings in the woods, congrats!"

"Fuck of!"

"No, what's it like, not being able to control anything, you should be used to it by now, being there slave!"

"If Spartans didn't exist humanity wouldn't stand a chance! Every world would burn!"

"Shut up, you know you don't care, you just did what you where told, what you wanted never crossed you mind!"

"It wasn't important with several hundred billion people on the line!"

"Great, what was your plan once the Covenant where done, back to basics, back to being a wet man? Crushing human rebelions?"

"If they where my orders..."

"Orders, is that all you lived for!"

"It was all I had, those bastards took everything from me!"

"Er... No they didn't."

"Yes they did!"

"Your Aunt was alive."

"Wha! I don't have an Aunt!"

"Yes you do, you know it, you saw her yesterday out in the forest."

"No I didn't, what the heck are you on about!"

"That woman hugging you in that memory, that was her Six."

"No it wasn't... that was..."

"Her name was Lucy, did you know that?"

"No I didn't..."

"Huh, funny, tell me do you remember your name?"

"Noble Six."

"No before Noble team."

"Spartan-B312"

"That's not a name Six, that's a number and a title. Come on Six, what's your name? What did your parent's call you?"

"I... I don't..."

"The UNSC took that from you, your dead officially, did you know that?"

"I didn't."

"Yes you did, well not consciously anyway."

"What, what do you mean?" Six asked, looking at the person in front of her, she'd long ago stopped being Ruby.

"I mean that five years ago, you where 18 at that point by the way, you where being used as an assassin before you where an adult, I found that particularly morbid..."

"Get on with it." Six growled, the figure just giggled as the vehicle bay melted away.

"... Sorry, guess its only funny as a matter of perspective, anyway I just thought you should know, For a split second you saw your own page, you didn't register what it read at the time but I've had time to look back over everything there, anyway..." The figure continued, seeing Six's death glare. " ...Its writen in your file, censored mostly, but its still there; You had a family, you weren't an orphan, but ONI had your file, you where perfect for the Spartan 3 program, they weren't going to let you slip through there fingers, so they lied to you, they lied to everyone who knew you and was still alive..." The figure leant close, eyes glowing as it looked at the Spartan.

"Nobel Six, your entire life was stolen from you, first by the Covenant and then by ONI, you deserved better, they all deserved better, why do you think your here? I wanted to give that to you."

Six was agape, looking at the figure in front of her.

"Who are you?"

"Know one you'd know or could find out about, look its not important, I just wanted you to know that the old way of doing things wasn't the best for you to be using."

"I don't get it, why do this in the middle of restoring my mech? Why not as soon as I got here?"

"Oh you weren't in the middle of restoring you mech, well you were, right up until you started easting, but you passed out while trying to get your lunch, you've been out of it for about an hour now? I think."

"I, what!"

"You passed out, lack of sleep which your dealing with now, good for you on that, burying Noble Team was a good start, even if it was only metaphorically; but mostly it was a lack of proper food."

"What do you mean?" The Spartan asked; genuinely confused at this point.

"As a Spartan what your body needed was vastly different, I reset you to a teen; you might want to try being one sometime, I did it for a reason you know; point is go eat properly, your body needs more than what your giving it, try cookies, I hear Ruby loves them."

Six just sat there, the world was getting out of focus now, the figure stood there, taking a few steps away, Six had a million questions she wanted to ask this figure; but one was burnt into her brain more than any other.

"Why me! Why am I the only one you brought back! Didn't they deserve another chance!"

The figure looked at her head titled in confusion as she vanished from focus, lost to the swirling black.

"When did I say I only saved you?"


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 How do I Teen?

"Miss Six, please do me a favour, Stop coming here!" A very frustrated Nurse cried as Six came to. Six looked around, she was in the hospital with a very worried looking Red head sitting next to her.

"Six your awake!" She cried, pulling the Spartan into a hug, Six smiled and took the hug. However, once the hug was over she turned to look at Locasta.

"Why am I in here this time?" The Spartan asked, admittedly Six knew full well what the answer was but it wouldn't hurt to get it confirmed.

"Your diet is terrible."

 _So that was real..._

"How terrible and what do I need to do to improve it?" Six asked, pulling her shirt up to examine her stomach, and getting quite a surprise when she saw just how thin she was.

"Very, I ran a check on your stomach and it was lacking in basically every group, care to explain to me why it looked like you've been eating basically nothing?"

Six couldn't give one, after her binge session just before the food fight she'd tried to return her diet to what a Spartan usually lived off of, forgetting that UNSC ration packs where enhanced and could give a person far more than they should have been able to.

Six felt ashamed, she'd made such a basic mistake and apparently alarmed Ruby by the expressions the girl was giving her.

"That's what I thought, look I know you girls like to dress up for the dance, but its not worth ytour health to slim down quickly."

Six just looked at the Nurse baffled.

"Wait what, you think I did this intentionally? Is this what normal people do?" Six asked, the Nurse gave her stink eye before replying.

"I have no other motive for you barley eating and its not the first time. Also no its not normal for people to do, why are you asking?"

"Because I didn't know the dance was a thing until last night, I just... the food back home, it went further..." Six muttered, still feeling the shame that she'd forgotten this vital detail. The Nurse looked at her; possibly trying to see if the girl was lying, apparently concluding that she wasn't Locasta shook her head.

"Six if you think what you've done to yourself these last four months was normal than your home... Well lets say I wouldn't go there." She said, sympathy in her eyes for a second before she walked off to go deal with someone else.

Six looked up at Ruby, who's silver eyes still seamed concerned. Six was about to ask something before she was interrupted by Locasta calling.

"You can leave by the way, go to dinner and get some food in your belly!"

Six nodded, then tried to get up, unfortunately for her she was still week and could hardly stand, forcing herself against the wall; her legs wobbling like crazy as they struggled to support her.

Just as she was about to fall Ruby caught her, getting one of Six's arms around her shoulder and taking most of the girls weight of her legs.

"Thanks." Six said, looking at the younger girl who just smiled.

"Its fine; now come on, you need food! And milk, make sure you get lots of milk."

"I will!" Six laughed as she staggered down the corridor, letting Ruby do the steering as the pair made there way towards the food hall.

"Hey Ruby..." Six slowly said as they made there way towards the hall.

"Yeah Six?" The girl asked, her eyes turning to look at the Spartan, who could just about keep her head up to meet them.

"You're the leader of team RWBY right?"

"Erm, yeah; what does that have to do with a anything?"

"How do you do it?"

Ruby stopped an opportunity that Six used to slump onto the ground, her aching legs getting a quick bit of relief.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... How do you know what to do? How do you know how to react when things go wrong?"

Ruby looked at Six for a few seconds before saying:

"I don't, I've just made mistakes and tried to do better, its all I can do."

"What do you mean?" Six asked as Ruby sat down next to her.

"Well for example I wasn't the best leader at first, I didn't take it seriously and was more interested in goofing off than doing what I was supposed to do." Ruby said, Six couldn't help but remember a crude doodle she'd once seen the girl doing labelled 'Professor Poop.'

"So, what changed?"

"Er, Simple; Professor Ozpin helped me put everything into perspective?" Ruby answered, Six nodded; it added up. Ozpin seamed to be good at doing that.

"Okay, so what did he say?" Six asked. Ruby's response was simpler than she was expecting.

"That it wasn't just about me anymore, I've always been good when it comes to being a Huntress, but I never realised I could drag my friends down with me by not doing my best, so I worked harder for them." She looked at Six, a questioning look in her eyes.

"Why did you want to know?"

Six smiled weekly.

"I was just thinking what Carter would have told me to do if he was here."

"Who?" Ruby asked, thinking for a split second that she'd heard Six say 'Cardin'

"Carter; he was the leader of Noble Team, I was just wondering how he'd react to learning I'd starved myself when food was easily available..."

Ruby smiled.

"I can't say for certain, but I know if I was your team leader I'd tell you to eat properly!"

Six smiled.

"I think your right Ruby, I think your right."

...

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Pyrrha asked, looking across the table at the Spartan, Six nodded, her teeth gritted in determination.

"Yes."

"But, but, no one has ever done this!" Jaune cried, looking at the insane girl who was about to attempt the impossible.

"There's always a first time." Six responded.

"Enough talk!" Nora cried, standing up and pointing dramatically at Noble Six.

"Noble Six, you accept my challenge?!"

The Spartan nodded.

"I do." She said with a grin, her stomach growling as she looked at the orange haired challenger.

"Then let the challenge begin!" Nora cried as she sat down and pulled the stack of pancakes towards her, Six did the same. Her goal was simple; devour more pancakes than your opponent without throwing up or heading to the bathroom.

The two ate like there lives depended on it, both of them seaming to inhale the pancakes, Six was currently ahead because she wasn't bothering to add syrup or sugar, she was just eating them straight up.

Weiss who was watching interested from the sidelines looked at Ruby and muttered:

"When Nurse Locasta said she needed to eat better I don't think this is what she meant."

Ruby just shrugged in response.

"Oh come on Weiss what's the worst that could happen?" Yang asked, before yelling: "Come on Nora I have 500 Lien on you!"

...

"What do you mean your out of pancakes!" Nora cried grabbing the poor Chef by his lapels and shaking him a mad glint inn her eye and sugar plastered to her pace.

"You ate them all!" He said, shaking in fear as Six readied her hammer behind Nora.

"I think he's lying, they must have more!"

"We really don't! _EEP!_ " He squeaked as Nora pulled him further over the counter and the hum of Six's hammer got noticeably louder.

"I refuse to believe two teenage girls ate all the pancakes inn a school that holds three hundred students, ergo you must have more and believe me if your hiding them I will make you suffer."

"I s,s,swear we don't!"

Six and Nora looked at each other.

"I'm breaking his legs." Nora declared.

Thankfully for the Chef he was spared this fate by Jaune who had vaulted over the counter and grabbed some syrup and quickly said:

"Drink these!"

The two pancake crazed girls looked at him, so Jaune quickly elaborated.

"Look they don't have more pancakes, but you can drink these instead and keep the match going!" He said, really hoping this plan worked.

"That is expectable." Six commented.

"You may live, for now." Nora said, giving the Chef the stink eye as the two walked of.

...

3 hours later.

...

"This was a mistake!" Nora cried from her cubical before doubling over and bringing up more pancakes.

"Yes, yes it was!" Six cried in the split second she had before hauling more up.

"Really Six? You left an hour ago!" Locasta cried, looking in exasperation at the Spartan and Nora.

"Please I just want something for indigestion... and an upset stomach." Six said, the smell of her breath made the Nurse's nose wrinkle as she breathed it in.

Sighing the Nurse stood up and pulled the bottles out of the cabinet and threw them at the pair.

"Take them and for the love of crap brush your teeth, you leave that on them and they'll rot."

"So not thinking of entering another eating contest?" Yang asked, a smirk on her face as she looked at the Spartan who nodded.

"Never again... Ever." The Spartan said thinking back on the previous days fiasco.

"Shame, still though I'm impressed you took in what you did, fifty nine pancakes each and ten bottles of maple syrup, that's an impressive amount to go through."

Six just nodded, she still felt bloated. She wondered if now was the best time to get a dress fitted, oh well she'd agreed to do it and she was pretty sure most of what she ate was now in the Vale Sewer system as opposed to in her.

The two sat quietly for a second before Yang started talking again.

"So any idea what kind of dress you'd like?"

Six shook her head.

"Yang back home was an eternal battle to stay alive with an unstoppable force that wanted nothing more than to wipe us of the map, there was no rest, not ever it was a literal hell... Dresses took a back seat surprisingly."

"Yeah but so's every other village in Remnant, you must have had some time."

Six shook her head.

"Really?" Yang asked, Six nodded.

"I, How?" Yang eventually asked, Six sat there for a second, wondering how best to explain her situation.

"Well... I was a special case..." She eventually answered.

"What do you mean 'Special case' Six?"

"My home, my original home was overrun by a bandit tribe when I was about five, I think, I'm not one-hundred percent sure on the exact date, I lost my birth family that day..."

"Six that's..."

Six put her hand up to stop Yang before she said anything else.

"Yang its fine, I can barley remember them anyway... Anyway, after that I was recruited into something called the Spartan program..."

"Do I want to know?" Yang asked, looking at Six somewhat worried.

"It was basically a Super Soldier program, I was recruited into it... you needed to be young to join you see... It was tough, brutal even; but I was good, really good..." Six looked down at her, feelings of guilt flooding her from the times when she'd done things like kick an opponent in the face during a rope climbing exercise causing the competitor to fall and break there back, all to make sure she was first. " ...Really good, so I progressed quickly; but in the end... it meant nothing."

Six leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling and sighing.

"I used to think I was the best, that's what we where told, Spartans where the best, that we never died, we just went missing in action, like we could show up at any random time." Six let out a cruel laugh upon saying that.

"But they where wrong, so wrong... Noble team, I lost all of them, I lost Reach... and then I wake up here. I wake up here on Remnant and suddenly I'm only average, everyone around me has natural ability's that outclass me, suddenly everything was worthless, everything I believed was pulled out from under me... my life was nothing but fighting and following orders, that was all I lived for, I never questioned anything, I never disobeyed and I did things I'm not proud of, all because I was told to..."

Six turned to look at Yang, who seamed both horrified and intruded.

"Yet, here I am, buying a dress for a dance with no other reason than I kinda want to go; what the hell is wrong with me!" Six cried, throwing her arms up in the air. Yang sat there for a second before saying.

"Nothing, your moving on and trying to do better, that's the most anyone can ask of you."

Six went to respond until Yang raised her hand and adopted a serious look.

"Six, just stop. Trust me not letting your past control you is the right thing... A long time ago I made the mistake of letting what I thought was missing or wrong control me... it didn't end well... I nearly got Ruby killed..." The Blond looked Six full in the face at this point. " ...Since then... Never, my past will not control me, and you shouldn't let yours control you Six, never."

"Well that went well." Yang said, happily holding the box under her arm. Six nodded in agreement, surprised that she'd found something that looked good on her scared body (The initial suggestion of backless dress had been rejected when Six showed them the massive plasma burn that went through her.)

"Yeah, I guess it was relatively painless..." Six muttered, before she heard something, a voice she'd heard before, Yang also stopped, but apparently thought she was crazy as she kept walking.

Six however didn't stop, she'd always found that investigating was better than figuring it was nothing. She dropped her dress box and sprinted down the alley way, quietly stopping behind a bin.

She was right, she had heard his voice, but she also heard some other voices as she got closer, she really wished she hadn't.

A quick peek over the dustbin confirmed it, Roman Torchwick the crook who had been using the stolen Atlesian mech (Six had learnt most of this at the Noddle store once they had finished eating) was talking with Two Elites, a Brute and four Grunts.

"So we have a deal? Human." The Zealot Elite asked, his red more elaborate armor standing out next to his partners batter yellow set.

"Oh very well, I will talk with my friends and see if I can get a meeting together, however we want the good stuff, none of that second rate crap you tried to pass of on the White Fang, trust me you don't want her, or her boss as your enemy." Roman said, the Brute in the group did not take kindly to this remark.

"Are you threatening me human!" He asked, lunging forward, only to be stopped by the Zealots energy sword.

"We will bear that in mind, as a token of our good will, we would like to give you this." He said, kicking open a crate that stood beside him. Six almost gasped.

 _How do these things keep getting those!_

The crate contained another suit of Spartan armor, a sky blue set that only had armor for one arm.

"Hmm... Impressive, tell me what use is this thing, its missing an arm." Roman commented, this disregard to her team mates remains was enough to infuriate her but now was not the time for anger, now was the time to be smart.

Six crept out from her hiding place, slowly moving around approaching the Elite with the damaged yellow armor, his sword in her sight.

"This armor belonged to a demon, slaying one and acquiring there armor is a significant note of pride for us, we give this great honour to you as a sign of respect."

Roman thought about it for a second before nodding.

"Very well, I aceppt..."

"Hey Six where are you!" Yang called down the alley way, Six's discarded dress box under her arm, completely unaware of the danger she was in.

 _Dammit Yang!_

Cursing Yang's bad timing Six acted fast, lunging for the Sword and igniting the blade, spinning around and driving the blade through a grunt before turning it on its owner, who unable to counter and with a broken shield generator fell quickly.

"Get it!" The Zealot yelled, igniting his own blade, The Grunts ran at Yang, who still in shock activated Ember Celica (Six was personally jealous that her primary weapon could be worn in public with no difficulty while hers couldn't.) The Brute also ran ant the blond once the grunts where mowed down, forcing Six to fight with the Zealot.

The two fought hard and fast, the blades clashing like crazy as they fought to get the upper hand.

"You fight well with that tool human!" The Zealot spat though its mandibles, looking down at the Spartan who countered by saying:

"I know it and it's users well!" She cried as she ducked a swipe and responded with a stab of her own, only to have it parried and for the Elite to respond.

"But how! Unless... **Demon!"** The Zealot yelled, figuring out Six's origins as he went for one massive swipe... Only to have his head destroyed and Yang drove her gauntlet into its head. The Zealot fell to the ground as his head exploded.

"Six, What the hell **is going on!** " Yang yelled, Six didn't answer she was looking around for Roman. Spotting him climbing a fire escape Six ran after her, bending down to scope up the Brute Shot the Brute Yang had killed had dropped, before aiming down at the ground and following Nora's (and many others) Example used the weapon to shoot herself into the air, landing on the roof in front of Roman who'd just finished climbing the fire escape.

"Your not getting away this time." Six spat, Roman just looked confused.

"I'm sorry have we met before?" He asked, twirling his cane around as he looked at Six.

"Yes, although I forgot the robot this time."

"Oh that was you! Oh, well that makes sense, you just can't resist butting your nose in can you? None of your lot can!" Roman cried in frustration, Six just smiled.

"Nope, sorry about that!" She yelled, attempting to slash the man with the blade on the Brute Shots underside.

"Well I guess I can solve some of my problems by killing you!" Roman responded, revealing the gun built into his cane and attempting to shoot the Spartan, Who just realized that she was lacking her shield generator.

"You think you can do that!" Six yelled, getting more aggressive with her slashing in an effort to prevent Roman from getting a clean shot at her.

"I guess I'll just have to try and see wont I!"

"You idiot! You seriously think I'd die so easily! Your friends down there couldn't do it what makes you think you can!" Six yelled in response, slashing his cane in half as she cried out.

"Well, not right now, Neo would you?"

Six smiled, that tactic wasn't going to work twice. She turned towards the sound of someone approaching and fired, the Brute Shot didn't kill the other girl but it did throw her of course and cause her to crack her head on the ground as her landing was thrown of.

"Neo!" Roman cried as Six dived for her umbrella, noting the sharpened end she threw it and pinned Roman to the ground through his trousers with the razor sharp point.

Six then darted behind Roman and pulled the blade to his throat, looking at Neo who was just recovering from her fall looked and saw Six, who smiled slyly.

"You can try doing something, but I really wouldn't recommend it, one wrong move and you could be down a boss."

Neo looked enraged but seamed to agree that Six was right and sat there fuming.

"Six what the hell is..." Yang said, having just finished climbing up the ladder, looking at the Spartan, who smiled.

"Yang, could you give Professor Ozpin a call? And possibly the vale police department."

Yang nodded as Six looked around, There was a group of dead Covenant down in the alley, she had retrieved Kat's armor, she could now add a Brute Shot to her collection of weaponry form home, She'd caught two criminals and she'd even managed to get a dress for the weekend.

Today had been a good day.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 Some explaining

"So... I imagine your confused?" Six asked looking around at the group in front of her.

"That's one way of saying it..." Weiss said, looking at the mess of what used to be alive aliens mere hours before.

"Are they real aliens?" Blake asked, looking down at the remains.

"Yeah, look this is going to be a long story." Six replied, Team RWBY had come down with Professor Ozpin (The Vale Police had come and taken Torchwick and Neo and then left, Six wasn't 100% sure why but she suspected Ozpin was involved.) Six was now under orders to explain the situation... and who she was.

In all fairness Six suspected Yang would have made her explain everything without the order with the amount of questions she was being blasted with while they waited.

Team RWBY was... Surprised to see the alien remains and how Possessive Six was being over the armor.

"Miss Six you might as well start explaining now otherwise were not going to be done by the time it gets dark." Professor Ozpin said, taking a sip from his mug as he sat down, following his lead Six and team RWBY joined him on the floor.

"Okay, this story is going to sound ridiculous at first, I would just like to remind you that the alien bodies are a right there as is the Power Armor."

"This story, it starts, well with me. I'm not from Vale, Or Atlas, or Mistral or Vacuo. My home... Is a planet called Reach." Six looked around, the stunned faces of everyone but Ozpin where more funny to her than they should have been.

"Yeah I'm an alien, well I'm still a human, but on Reach we didn't have Grimm, or Huntresses. The elite warriors on Reach where called Spartans, actually Spartans defended all of humanity, all 700 billion of us."

"The main thing we fought was the Covenant, those aliens down there where members. Spartans acted as humanity best chance against them... yes Blake?" Six asked, looking at Blake who had stuck her hand up like they where back in class.

"Why did these Covenant beings consider you the enemy?"

Six looked hard at Blake before answering.

"We didn't start the war if you asking, they did started it with the Battle of Harvest. Humanity first encounter with a sentient alien race, they destroyed the planet and the fleet guarding it, the closest thing to a reason we got was _'Your destruction is the will of the gods, we are their instrument'_ "

Six looked around, her audience looked completely baffled, so Six continued.

"We found out what they meant by that later, The Covenant is an extremist religious faction and they believe humanity to be an abomination and as such we must be wiped out completely, there very dedicated to it."

The group could see Six's eyes fall at this point.

"When I last heard they had successfully Glassed forty planets, each with populations of somewhere between 1 and 5 billion people... The most recent planet to fall... Was Reach."

Six couldn't speak for a few seconds, letting tears build up in her eye, but she didn't cry, she wiped her eyes and looked up, Blake had another question.

"Yes Blake?"

"What do you mean by 'Glassed'?" The black haired girl asked, Six looked at her, taking a deep breath before asking.

"What I mean by 'Glassed' or as its more frequently called: Glassing is something the Covenant do when the want to completely destroy a planet, They superheat the planet using Plasma weaponry from orbit, the planet is left a burned wreck, covered all over in glass, there no surviving it, there's no escaping it; if your on the Planet your going to die, when I died Reach was being Glassed, a part of me is happy I died before it was done..."

Half the crowed looked horrified, The only one who didn't look completely horrified was Ruby and that was because she was half horrified and half confused.

"You died?" She asked eventually, Six nodded, pulling up her shirt.

"I was the last human on Reach, I'd stayed behind to operate a Mach Cannon to protect the last ship of planet, it was a one way trip, they weren't coming back for me. And they didn't, I was left on Reach. Alone." Six then looked up, a mad grin spreading across her face as she looked at the group, a mad glint in her eyes as tears began to escape.

"Well, when I say alone I mean no more living humans. The Covenant where doing a few more extermination rounds before leaving, I made sure as many of them as possible regretted it."

"I killed as many of the fuckers as I could, I fought for hours, just trying to kill them! But... eventually..." Six pointed to her exposed Plasma wound.

"I took an Energy Sword through the guts... I should have died, but for some reason I didn't, I kept on living... here." Six sighed.

"I woke up naked in the Emerald Forest..." Six muttered, looking around awkwardly.

"Then I found them again, at the end of my Mission with Team CFVY I encountered the Covenant again, weakened and clearly not full force, but they where back... And they had my friend with them."

The look of shock they gave her caused her to elaborate.

"Well, not literally, they had his armor, Emile is probably the only person in the universe who thought Carving a skull into his visor was a smart idea, as for this suit..." Six said, gesturing over her shoulder to indicate the light blue set behind her. " ...That belonged to Kat, second in command of Noble team, their all that's left of them, I have to keep them safe..." Six stopped at this point, she figured it would be best to let them ask for details.

 **"Your an alien?!"** Ruby blurted.

"No, I'm a human; I just didn't live on Remnant."

"Isn't that the same thing?" Yang asked, Six shook her head.

"No; it could just be my perspective, but when the UNSC has several thousand planets under its control there's no real point keeping track of where everyone's from; you just a human who happened to be born somewhere else." Six explained, Blake took the next question.

"Where their Faunus on this 'Reach' planet?" Blake asked. Six shook her head.

"No, as far as I know Faunus are unique to Remnant, I'd never encountered one before I came here..." Six then looked at Blake, her head tilted. " ...Why do you ask? Did you asume I had a problem with Faunus or something?"

Blake respond by raising her eyebrows.

"No, maybe if you'd told us this when we first met; but given how you dealt with Cardin... Well seeing as people who are born in the same world as Faunus have a problem with them... well someone whos never encountered one... erm..."

Seeing Blake's though process breaking down Six interjected.

"Look, My world was burned by racist religious zealots, I hate anyone who holds those positions or mentality's and I wont stand for seeing it."

There was a moment of Quite after Six finished saying that; which eventually Six added:

"Any other questions?"

Six continued to answer the questions the other asked her, most of it was random trivia and wasn't worth bringing up.

It was only after about an hour that Team RWBY ran out of questions. As the group was about to leave Six turned to Ozpin.

"Care to explain why you brought all of Team RWBY with you?"

"You believe Yang would have kept quite? I believe that the team could keep this amongst themselves, I'm less convinced that Miss Xao Long could keep it to herself."

Six nodded at that.

"Okay, fair enough... So what do we do now?"

Ozpin looked surprised.

"What do you mean?" He asked, Six's mouth opened agape.

"What do I mean? You have a faction of religious zealots on your planet who would like nothing better than to wipe all of Humanity out! Are you planning to do anything!" Six realised she was yelling so she added. "...Sir"

"Of course and I would like to enlist you as a consultant. **Because...** " He said, looking at Six's horrified face. " ...While you may have the most experience fighting these creatures, you are ultimately a teenager without the resources you used to have, or the team, or the weapons. Your not who you used to be Six, I have resources and I would like to invite you to join the fight. Once you graduate. This is a new world to you and your not capable of operating in it yet."

Six looked at him, what he said made perfect sense and would probably be what Carter would have done in this situation; however...

"The Covenant slaughtered billion's, your underestimating them."

"No I'm not Six, I know you don't believe that..." He said, catching a glance at Six's stink eye. " ...But I must ask you to trust me, I want your help on this situation; if we encounter them we will get your help with planing and strategy and if you encounter them again I will not ask you to ignore them or not fight, I just don't want to put you intentionally in harms way; you have friends here and they would miss you if you where gone."

"I didn't think about that..." Six muttered.

"You were never in a situation where you could think about things like that, but you are now, take advantage of it. After all its not like it's a time that will last forever."

Six sat there, looking at the Headmaster as he walked away.

 _He's right you know, anyway; at least wait until the Dance is over before you do something stupid, that dress was expensive you should use it._

Six picked up the dress box Yang had recovered and opened it up, looking at the garment inside, this was the first thing she could say she'd truly been given because ultimately everything else had been given because it would help her with her job, her weaponry was to be used in her job, her armor was to help with her job... This, Yang had given it to her all so she could have fun on one night.

Six smiled she was determined to have this night be amazing now, was there anything else she could do... Well there was one thing; quickly she flicked out her Scroll and pulled up a number.

"Hey Coco... Could you help me with something...?"


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 A Pleasant Evening.

Six could safely say she was surprised, it wasn't every day the girl who reliably kicked her ass in training was found clearly upset outside her room.

"Pyrrha what's going on?" Six asked, looking at the red head. Who jolted in surprise and turned to face her.

"Oh Six, I er..." The girl attempted to say something, but she wasn't getting anywhere fast.

"I can tell something's wrong; I have something I need to do soon but would feel like a jerk if I left you alone while you're clearly upset." Six turned to face Pyrrha. "So, what's wrong?"

Pyrrha looked confusedly at the Spartan for a second, before sighing.

"It's not a big deal..."

"Pyrrha your eyes are red, you're slumped against the wall and your hairs a mess, it is a big deal, so stop acting like it isn't and please explain why; Oh and I'm not good with subtle implications so just be blunt."

"It's, it's Jaune..."

Six raised her eyebrow.

"Jaune? What the hell did he do?"

"Nothing, its my fault..."

Six was really confused now.

"Wait, Jaune did something and its your fault? I, my brains going all the wrong ways please explain this to me." The confused Spartan said, Pyrrha elaborated for the confused girl.

"I, I like Jaune; I was hoping he was going to ask me to the dance, but he's got a thing for someone else..."

Six looked confused.

"So you like him, but he doesn't like you in the same way?" She said, trying to wrap he head around what was being told to her.

"Yes, he's asking her out now... so I guess I'm going alone... as per usual..."

"Hang on 'As per usual' How the hell does that work, was there just more dances I missed while I was out with CFVY or something?" Six asked, looking at the Red head, who shook her head.

"No, it's just... No one ever asks me to things like this because of what I can do... I'm always on my own it's basically impossible for me to make any meaningful connections with anyone... And then I finally meet someone I want to be with and he doesn't think he has a chance with me either..." Pyrrha was looking down at the ground now, her eyes where starting to gloss over.

Six wasn't sure what to do, when it came to emotional stress the most she was used to was motivating soldiers who'd gone into shock, something like this was beyond her capability's, she was painfully aware that she should be doing something... but what?

"How did it get like this?" Six asked, standing awkwardly, shifting weight from foot to foot as she tried to figure out what to do.

"Well, I guess its because, well; I'm good at what I do, I train hard and I keep going... it's just, that sort of skill; it keeps people away, it makes them think I'm above them. The only people who ever seam to have the courage to come up to me are egotistical jerks who don't care..."

 _Crap! I don't know what to do, I mean I get being better than everyone, thats basically the dictonnary definition of being a Spartan, but that didn't keep people away! Okay it pissed of the ODST's but most people liked having the best around, why is it different for her!? Why does nothing make sense here!?_

"I can't imagine what that's like... I'm sorry, but what about JNPR? There has to be something there right?" Six asked.

 _She likes Jaune right? That must mean JNPR's a good thing, right!?_

"Yes, yes there is..." Pyrrha said, tears flowing now as she looked up. "They're, well they're amazing, Nora and Ren treat me like a person, not just a big name they've heard of and Jaune, Jaune didn't even know my name and he was still good to me, he treated me like any other person... I guess that's why..."

Six nodded, for the first time since this conversation began she could make sense of something.

"Yeah, I get that..." Six trailed of.

"But, then he liked her and I told her to go after her, I gave him advice, what the hell is wrong with me...?"

Six was just lost and then she had an idea, it was crazy but it might just work...

"Pyrrha would you like to go to the Dance with me?"

...

"Coco can we please be quick with this? Someone's waiting..." Six said as she lent over the edge of her bath, letting her hair dangle of the tub while Coco washed it.

"Oh someones got a date tonight" Coco said as a mad grin spread across her face.

"Yes as of the last five minutes I am going with someone, although its not a date, I'm doing it so she doesn't have to go alone, there's nothing romantic about that." Six replied, in all honesty still surprised that Pyrrha had said yes, girl must have been desperate.

"I don't know, pity dates can lead to something more, wouldn't you agree Vel?" Coco said with a sly grin towards the Rabbit Faunus, who smiled while rolling her eyes.

"If you remember correctly I asked you out." She commented, looking over at her partner.

"Yes you did and you were blushing like crazy, oh man Six you should have seen it, it was so cute! Her entire face went bright red and she was so awkward, I had to say yes!"

Six smiled as Coco began to rub one of the conditioners she'd gotten her into her hair, apparently it was going to make her hair look better, Six wasn't sure how it worked or why (Six had previously sported a buzz cut and as such hair care was low on the priorities list) so she'd asked the Fashionista to help her out.

"That sounds nice, however on the grounds I asked her because she couldn't go with the **Guy** she wanted to, I wouldn't expect anything to come out of this, I personally intend to make sure Jaune's at least aware of her feelings towards him even if he doesn't act on them." Six muttered, Coco looked surprised.

"Wait, Pyrrha likes Jaune?"

Six nodded.

"Erm... Okay, how did that happen?" The confused girl asked, even Velvet looked at least mildly interested. (although Six was pretty certain the main reason she was here was to stare at Coco's butt while she worked on Six's... everything without the other girl noticing. A hypothesis drawn based on the facts that's exactly what Velvet had been doing for the last half an hour.)

"No idea, apparently it has something to do with Jaune treating her like a normal girl and not pre destined champion of the universe or something... Look I don't get romance okay?!" Six said, looking at the two.

"That's makes sense to me." Coco commented as she started rinsing Six's hair of the conditioner she'd just put in.

 _This makes no sense!_

"I can see it..." Velvet added.

"Well I'm glad you can because I can't... But if theirs a chance I'd like to do something..." Six muttered as Coco finished up with the shower.

"Really? What do you intend to do?" Velvet asked from the corner, pulling out her scroll and tapping the screen.

"I have no idea, the plan was show up and make him realize how desperate she was if she'd except my invitation... What!?" Six said in exasperation as the couple looked at her in shock.

"Six...?"

"Yes?" The frustrated Spartan asked as Coco started taming her uncontrollable mess of hair. (Which now hung down past her shoulders because she hadn't cut it in the four plus months she'd been on Remnant)

"How would you have to be desperate to except an invite from you?" Velvet eventually asked. Six stared back at her blankly.

"Well, while I'm not an expert on these mater's I'm pretty sure straight girls don't except offers from emotionally screwed up messes of girls... Just a theory though."

"Okay I get that..." Coco said as she brushed the hair. " ...But Six I think you've got way to low an opinion of yourself, your not that bad actually..." She trailed of as Velvet shot her a hurt look.

"What are you on about now?" The Spartan asked as Coco began experimenting with her hair, Holding it in a verity of styles, trying to decide the best one.

"Six... You are aware you pretty right?" Velvet slowly asked, Six was just looked surprised.

"Seriously?"

"Yes, I, Six how do you not know this!?" Coco asked, shocked as the looked down at the Spartan, who shrugged.

"I dunno, it never came up? We never really got a chance to talk about it back home, if you weren't on the ball chances are... well things wouldn't end well lets put it that way."

Coco nodded slowly.

"Okay, I understand that to some extent, but Six how do you not know, I mean did you ever look in a mirror since you got here? Come on you must have known!"

"I honestly didn't, look is this important? I'm trying to help someone else I don't need my problems getting in the way for the umpteenth time. Also how the hell am I pretty? Or are scars attractive here?" Six asked, looking down at her arms, each of which was covered in a mass of burns and scars.

"Okay so those aren't exactly a desired trait, but seriously Six you have a perfect figure and your face is a great mix between hot and cute... Not the best obviously!" Coco said upon seeing the hurt look on Velvets face. "But still, your not that bad, why do you have such a negative perception of yourself?"

 _Because I know who I've let down and what I've done and no! Bad brain, Pyrrha, we're helping her tonight!_

"Because having a perception of what I looked like wasn't important, look can we stop talking about this!?" Six asked, wanting to focus on her actual problem and let those two get on with there own preparations, she only needed their help with her hair and possibly make up; she could put on a dress and shoes by herself and they still had two hours before the dance started.

"Okay, I'll let it slide because by the time I'm done you wont be able to say your not attractive!" Coco said, a vaguely sinister smile spreading across her face.

 _I'm going to regret enlisting her aren't I?_

...

"I, erm... Wow." Was all Six could say, looking at herself in the mirror. Her hair had been tamed, no longer a slightly tangled mess of purple it was now sleek and clean, tied in a low of center pony tail that hung down her back, one side of her hair had been pulled back into the tail, but one had been left hanging to make a small scar Six had between her right eye and eat unnoticeable.

Her face also looked better, not only were the scars paler but the bags under her eyes where gone, well covered up (You needed more than a few good nights sleep to get rid of the bags Six had) Whatever Coco had done to her eyelashes had made them stand out more and made her orange eyes seam bigger and somehow less pissed of than they normally where.

The final thing that made Six lost for things to say about herself was her outfit. Yang really did have a good eye, the lavender garment was form fitting at the top but flared out further down, with the pale pink ribbon tied around her waist acting as the dividing point, add that to the simple purple flats (Six couldn't walk in high heals as she'd discovered while shopping with Yang.) and Six honestly had no reaction, even the visible scars couldn't detract to much.

However, Six's favorite part of the dress was what it let her get away with. Since she apparently couldn't go shopping without getting into a fight Six was wearing the shield generator from her ODST armor around one thigh (At a point too high for anyone to see) and Emile's Knife was strapped to the other (ideally she'd have brought her Hammer but she couldn't find a way of hiding it under her dress) Six didn't want to need either of them, but as she'd learned recently it was better to be prepared and not need them, as opposed to needing them and not having them.

Plus she was fairly confident that seeing as Aura was a natural shield generator anyway it couldn't hurt to have one on her... as for the knife... well knify finger was a fun game among the Marines so...

Okay she had no reason other than she felt safer with a knife on her.

"Six you came and oh my god!" Yang cried as she greeted the Spartan and her 'Date'

"Hi Yang..." Six muttered, going red, Pyrrha looked happy enough, Six was seriously wondering why she asked the Red head, she didn't regret doing it but it was awkward.

"Well this is a surprise, Pyrrha I didn't think you swung that way." Yang commented with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't, but Six was the only one who asked me."

"Well I'm happy someone did, good for you Six!" Yang said happily, gesturing for the two to step in, which they did, Six personally happy to be out of the cold, she was used to military gear, not light weight dresses and she knew which one focused more on warmth.

The two walked in, Six was aware some eyes were on her; but that didn't matter she was trying to help Pyrrha; she could live with the rumors provided this night went well for her.

"So... what do you do at these things?" Six asked, rocking on her feet as she looked around awkwardly.

"What?" Pyrrha asked, Six blushed.

"I have no idea what I'm meant to do on nights like these... do you have any ideas?" Six asked, her first goal was to make sure she was happy, the next was to track down Jaune and work out what the hell was going on.

"Well, you could ask me to dance?" The Red head suggested, smiling down at Six (It was an nerving experience for Six, She used to be seven foot tall, now Pyrrha who used to be a few inches taller than her was now quite a few inches taller than her because of her heals, it wasn't something Six was used to)

"Erm, sure...? so, do you want to dance?" Six asked, blushing like crazy as Pyrrha excepted.

The two danced for some time, she wasn't sure how long, what she did figure out was that she was a terrible dancer judging by how Pyrrha kept giggling every time she looked at her.

Still despite how bad she was at it she at least made Pyrrha laugh, so she'd made the night not a complete wright off for the Red head, so hey, she halfway done.

"Hey Pyrrha!" Nora cried, beeminng as she looked at the red head. Six left as the two began talking and slipped off, she was happy enough, now all she had to do was fix the situation; or at least figure out what was going on.

Six weaved in and out of the crowd, looking for the blond boy. Sadly this was hard seeing as everyone seamed taller that night, well the girls did.

Regretting not wearing any heals (conveniently forgetting her face would be a part of the floor if she had chosen to wear the things) Six eventually headed towards Ruby on the grounds she at least recognized her and she was having as good a time as she was.

"Not having fun?" Six asked as she approached, Ruby jumped.

"Whoa! Six, is that you?"

"Yes." Six said wondering if the transformation was so extreme (it probably wasn't; it struck Six as more likely that it was just a surprise to see her not as a sleep deprived wreck)

"Wow you look so different!" Ruby said, surprised at the change in the Spartan, who just nodded, still focused on finding Jaune.

"Yeah I guess I do, look have you seen Jaune and Weiss?" Six asked, still frustrated that she couldn't find the pair.

"Erm... Weiss is over there, but I don't know where Jaune is..."

"Wait didn't they come together?" Six asked.

"No, Weiss came alone, apparently she had too much on her mind to think about boys." Ruby said calmly taking a sip of her punch.

Something inside Six's brain cracked.

"He, he didn't even ask her?" Six muttered, her eyes going small as she looked around.

"Who didn't ask... Oh hi Jaune!" Ruby cried cheerfully, Six span around, seeing her target.

Without a word to Ruby, Six darted forward, grabbing the blond by his wrist and dragging him off.

"We need a word." She growled, grabbing the boy by his wrist and dragging him off; surprising the blond with her strength.

Once they where out on the empty balcony Six rounded on the boy.

"What the hell happened!" She cried, her eyes burning with a furry Jaune had never seen before.

"Wha, what happened!" He said, backing of slightly, only noticing to late that Six had positioned herself in front of the door so he couldn't run.

"Why the hell are you here on your own!"

"I, what!"

"Pyrrha encouraged you to ask Weiss out despite the fact it broke her heart and then you show up on your own! What, the, hell!" Six yelled, moving forwards towards Jaune who instinctively took a step back.

"It's not like that! She was asking Neptune out and I figured, wait..." Jaune looked at her. " ...It broke Pyrrhas heart? What do you mean?"

Six rolled her eyes in frustration.

"I mean she likes you dumbass! She was kinda hoping you'd ask her out to this dance actually!"

"But, wait, why would she want me?" Jaune asked, Six just looked at him.

"I don't know, maybe the fact you treat her like a person? Maybe because that's what she's looking for! Someone who likes her for her! Not her fighting skill or fame!" The exasperated Spartan cried at boy.

"But, I mean... She's Pyrrha Niko's, she could do so much better than me..."

"Probably, Gotta be honest I don't get this romance crap, all I do know is she wants you, you might wanna capitalize on that as opposed to going after the girl who clearly isn't interested if she asked someone else out!" Six yelled, the silence (Outside of the noise drifting in from the Dance hall) was held until Pyrrha walked onto the balcony.

"Six? Are you out here, Ruby said you came this way and oh!" A very surprised Red head said, Six looked around, smiled and grabbed her wrist, dragging her towards the Blond.

"You two, talk this shit out; if you need me I'll be seeing if there's any Alcohol around here..."

"Their isn't." Pyrrha said.

"Great, well I'll be going then, now; you two, talk!" Six said, shoving Pyrrha towards Jaune while leaving the room.

Six had a suspicion that wasn't how Couples counselling worked, but hey she'd tried.

 _Would have been nice to have Jorge's help back there..._

Six sighed, wondering if it was worth staying. Concluding their probably wasn't much reason she darted out the front door, hoping to get some fresh air.

What she saw should have scared her and on some level it did, but it was also sort of nice to have her paranoia pay off, at least it meant she hadn't gone to a dance with a shield generator and a knife strapped to her legs for no reason.

A figure in black was dragging of an Atlesian soldier, Six crouched down low.

 _Okay, she's moving him, is it a body or is he just knocked out? Who is she?_

Having no answers Six decided to find out, she moved forward, spotting the discarded gun of the solider. Smiling Six took it in her hands, she had no idea how it worked but she could see an ammo count on the back of the gun and it had the familiar feeling of a military weapon, something Six trusted to have her back. Even if she was wearing a dress.

Six moved forward, keeping the Black figure at a distance.

 _The CCT? Why is she heading there? Its a communication point, is she trying to take it out, its the main way of communicating between the kingdoms? Possibly the fleet... is she trying to cripple them?_

Six wasn't sure what, but she was sure the figure in black needed stopping.

She followed her, seeing the attacker disappear into the elevator. Six ran into the building and began looking for stairs to make her way up. She found them and darted up, knowing the woman in black had the edge over her.

 _I just hope she hasn't had time to do any serious damage._

Six forced the door open at the top, the Main computer room was empty outside of the figure in black who's just finished knocking out the last guard and was moving towards the main computer, setting something down next to the screen as she moved to sit in the chair.

Without thinking Six took aim and blasted at the screen, shattering it, the assailant turned and looked at her.

"Stand down!" Six called, The figure didn't, instead she charged towards her, two pouches on her belt opening and forming into a twin set of black bladed weapons as she ran at Six.

Six fired on her but the attacker closed the distance in such a short time she could barley get any shots of before the gun was cut I half and she was kicked halfway across the room.

Six's shield held as she slammed into the wall, Six recovered quickly and waited for the attacker to try again, she did, lunging at Six, who rolled under her strike and drew Emile's knife, slashing at her opponent; who sadly dodged it.

The two fought like crazy and sadly Six could tell this fight wasn't going to end well for her, she needed help.

The fight was getting more extreme, her opponent getting more and more aggressive, slashing and stabbing at her with her swords. The good news was that Six had avoided any serious damage, the downside was that everything around her was being destroyed, the computer screens where smashed and the cases shattered as her opponent tried to kill her.

Eventually Six's shield broke, she saw it as the Woman in black grabbed her around the neck, lifting into the air, a shower of glass from the wrecked computer screens forming into a lethal looking spike. She didn't say a word but Six saw an odd mix between respect and loathing inn her eyes.

"Hey!"

"Your under arrest!"

Both where cried at the same time, Six turned, shocked to see two people had made it up while they where fighting, Ruby and General Ironwood, Ruby with her Scythe and the General with something that was defiantly not a standard pistol, both aimed at her attacked, who froze, Six took the opportunity to slash at her with her knife.

Her tactic half worked, Emile's blade carved through her opponents belt but the attacked dived out of the room through a broken window, Six collapsed to the ground and fraught to get her breath back as Ruby and the General ran over to her.

"Six are you okay!" Ruby cried as she bent down. Six nodded as best she could.

"Yeah, my shield held up, General Ironwood Sir!" Six gasped darting to her feet, looking him straight in the eye.

"She was trying to do something involving this!" Six said, moving towards the main screen, picking up the USB stick that the intruder had put their before Six shot out the screen. The General took the drive and pocketed it.

"I'll have my men do a complete break down of what's on there on a closed network as soon as I'm back on the ship." He then paused to look at Six. "Are you okay?"

The Spartan nodded.

"Yessir, My Shield Generator held up during the fight, though my dress is somewhat ruined..." Six commented, looking down, the Garment was mostly fine but the skirt had seen quite a bit of damage being outside of the Spartans shield and as such had been reduced to a torn mess, personally Six kind of liked it, though she wasn't sure Yang would feel the same way...

"That's okay, so long as you're not hurt, but we did not need this, first that Neo escapes and now the CCT gets damaged." The General muttered, looking of into the distance.

Six sheathed Emile's knife, forgetting that she was raising her dress to do it in front of an older man while she was a teenager, The General thankfully looked away instantly, Six went red when she realized what she was doing.

"Sorry sir!" She blurted, Ruby just looked intrigued.

Ruby and Six did not stick around the CCT, it was a crime scene now and a full investigation team was running around now and none of them really wanted two teenagers getting in the way.

Neither of the pair wanted to go back to the dance, Six wanted to hide from Yang and Ruby was leaving when she noticed the fight going on in the tower.

Six only took a quick glance through the window as they headed back to the dorms, she released a genuine smile upon seeing Jaune and Pyrrha dancing (She was also surprised to see that Jaune was actually a good dancer)

 _A Giraffe dyeing of a heart attacks mad flailing is a better dance than whatever you where doing_

The two parted ways and headed to there respective rooms; Ruby headed upstairs and Six headed along the corridor to her room, which was on the ground floor and technically a disused changing room.

The space had first been built as a changing room, but had been replaced by newer ones a few years ago, so when Six needed a room quickly they'd just put a bed and some flat packed furniture in and cleaned the old changing rooms shower for her to use.

To most it would be a quick job and wouldn't really be good for long term use, however Six wasn't worried, to a Spartan having as much space as she did was more than she was used to, Also being on the ground floor meant the two sets of heavy armor she had couldn't fall through the floor.

Six smiled at Emile and Kats armor (She'd recently cleaned it up and had it standing next to Emile)

"Hey guys..." She began, wondering how mad she was to be talking to empty suits of armor " ...As it turns out I can't even go to a dance without getting attacked in some ways... still it was fun... I guess? I sorted out some relationship drama... I think? I'll ask tomorrow. Anyway, it's weird being a semi normal teen, but part of its fun, I wish you guys could have been here, it would have been fun, but I would like you to be here all the time... Oh well."

Six smiled and looked at the two suits.

"Goodnight guys..." Six said as she pulled her hair lose and flumped down onto the bed, asleep within the minute.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 Just like home

 _Warning Cheesecake awaits you in this chapter, you have been warned_

...

Six woke up the next morning tired but ultimately happy with herself. The fight had been brutal but at the very least they hadn't achieved what they set out to do; as far as Six was concerned that was nothing but a good thing.

As she did her morning stretches she wondered what she should do that day, technically first years where supposed to sign up for there first out of school mission, the problem with that was Six had already been on a mission out of the school with Team CFVY and wasn't obligated to go on one; however Six decided to head down anyway, if only for something to do.

That being said as she stood up she felt the familiar pain in lower regions.

 _Not this again..._

Six was starting to become worried, she wasn't sure why but a couple of weeks into her first mission with Team CFVY her groin had started hurting and bleeding, Six at first thought this was the result of an injury from the Grimm, she was fighting a lot of them without a sheild and picked up quite a few injurrys.

She was more concerned when it happened a month later on the mission and the month after that. Six had no idea what was going on but if it happened again she was going to see Locasta.

 _This is serrioussly a pain, what the hell is even going on?_

A quick change later into the base suit of her ODST gear Six headed out, looking around the room. Six was looking at a board until she heard someone calling her.

"Six! Six get over here!" A familiar voice called, Six turned around and saw Nora waving at her, standing alongside the rest of her team.

Six headed over to the group and smiled, she was surprised when Nora grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into what was unmistakably a hug.

"Er... Nora, I'm happy about this, but why...?" Six asked, confused at the sudden personal space violation.

"Thank you!" She cried, smiling brightly as she squeezed tighter. Not that it really bothered her but she was fairly certain it would have broken the back of any other person.

"For what?" Six asked, looking around awkwardly.

"For getting those two together! Do you have any idea how awkward it was being around those two, I just wanted to shake and them and beg them to start screwing, but because of you those two are finally a thing!" The orange haired girl cried.

"I'm very happy for you Nora, but can you let me go... please, I'm not good with hugs."

The bubbly girl did relent and Six staggered away, her back in a surprising amount of pain.

"Sorry Six, but seriously thank you!" Nora said, smiling as Six looked up.

"Yeah, no problem..." Six muttered, taking a second to glance at Juane and Pyrrha. Six was happy to see the two standing next to each other, although she couldn't see any real difference with how they where acting, but then again what did she know about being part of a couple? It wasn't like a war was the best place to start a relationship.

"What sort of missions are you looking for anyway?" Six asked, looking at the board they where standing next to.

"We where going to help the Huntsmen down at a local village tomorrow." Ren explained, making it the first time Six had hear Ren say anything to her directly, the dude was quite.

"Seams good, sounds allot more fun than extermination anyway." Six muttered, thinking back on nights spent camping in the rain and the lack of food she'd suffered through for the last few weeks. (A part of her felt it probably would have been better if she known she did need the same amount of food as the rest of them, as opposed to being able to run of less food than everyone else)

 _This body really needs a manual..._

"Hey you should come with us!" Nora cried happily, Six tilted her head.

"Are you sure, I mean..."

"No I think it would be nice to have another helper, assuming we can sign someone else up for the mission..." Jaune commented, looking at the screen to see if their where any other buttons or solo Huntress slots.

Six smiled as she shook her head.

"Thanks for the offer but I'll pass, I've already done a mission and I think I'll take some more time here, gotta fix that entry hole..." She muttered, thinking back to Kat's helmet, she really needed to fix that before she was happy with it.

"Well if your sure..." Pyrrha said, trailing off as Professor Goodwitch approached them.

"Noble Six, the Headmaster would like a word with you." She said, Six nodded and headed off.

…

"Ah Miss Six good morning." The Headmaster said, Six could safely say she was surprised to meet him at the elevator that lead to his office instead of the the office itself.

"Sir!" She said, resisting the urge to salute, badly...

"Six you don't need to Salute me, I am your Headmaster not a Commander." He commented.

"Sorry Sir, force of habit."

"I never said it was a bad thing, I'm just saying most students don't do that." He explained as they waited for the elevator to arrive.

The rode up in silence, not speaking a word until they stepped out and entered the Professors office.

Six could not say she was surprised to see the General waiting for them, Six nodded at him before sitting down opposite the Headmasters chair.

"Well Miss Six, I'm sure you know why I asked you up here?" The Headmaster asked.

"I assume its about the incident at the CCT last night?" Six asked, then she turned to the General, guilt on her face. "Oh and I apologize about the damage, most of it was her but I did intentionally damage the main console screen." Six explained.

To Six's surprise the General didn't scold her for her actions, he actually complimented her on her conduct and successful prevention of the USB's contents.

"The lab boys have had a look at it, while we don't know what it does we have identified it as a virus."

Six nodded.

"Very well, what would you like to know?"

Six spent the next hour explaining what had happened in exact detail, mentioning every detail and every action she could remember, just as ONI had taught her, happy to be at least comfortable while doing it this time.

Six left after that, she'd given everything she'd done and apologized for the destroyed Atlesian weaponry, The Spartan was amazed how much she was forgiven for in this world, stealing and destroying a weapon was largely considered unforgivable, but her new home was surprisingly comfortable with it.

After that Six needed something to do, once again she was not required to go on a mission, so with no other plan she set of on a run around the campus.

Beacon took about half an hour to run around if you included all the changing rooms and out door facility's, so it was a nice quick work out for the Spartan, she was surprised when she bumped into someone.

"Hello Coco." Six said, seeing the beret wearing girl who had her gun under her arm apparently stuck half way through its transformation.

"Hi Six, just on my way to the weapons workshop, Gun broke again." Coco said, Six nodded.

"The abuse you put that thing through I'm not surprised."

"What abuse?"

"Coco no Gatling gun is designed to be fired for hours on end let alone one that transforms into a hand bag... However you make that happen..." The Spartan trailed of, looking in confusion at the weapon.

"It can take it, I just need to replace some stuff."

"Coco..."

…

The two bickered and argued all throughout the rest of the day, most of which was spent in the weapons bay, with Six continuing to work on her mech suit while Coco fixed her bag.

Overall this day was fairly standard for the Spartan ever since she arrived on Remanent, well until the end of there stay in the weapons bay.

"Hey Six, Fox and Yatsuhashi are out tonight, so me and Coco have the room to ourselves..."

"Yes?" Six asked, really hoping Coco wasn't asking for what she thought she was.

"Well, Me and Vel where wondering if you wanted to stay in our room tonight?"

"Erm, Okay; Why?" Six asked tilting her head to the side.

"Cause we want to?" Coco asked, as if she needed a reason.

"Well I thought you two would want the room to yourself, you know... Couple stuff?"

"We don't need to do couple stuff every time we get the room to ourselves." Coco responded, looking at the Spartan as if she was mad.

"Oh, well... I guess so, are you sure there isn't a reason..."

"We felt like it, there you go. Reason; you coming or not?"

Six just nodded, it was the only response she could give to the beret wearing girl. Wondering if she'd regret showing up.

 _Well its not like things could go that baddly..._

"Great, go shower and be at our room by seven, okay see ya!" Coco said as she left.

Coco had to be honest, she wasn't being completely honest with Six, there was a reason she and Coco wanted to inviter her over, mostly how she'd acted at the Dance. Six claimed she had only invited Pyrrha to the dance out of pity and a desire to make sure the night went well for her, however Coco noticed something when the two where dancing, something she was sure Six herself had failed to notice.

Six was weird when it came to personal space, she had a much higher tolerance for it... When it was a girl, Six had basically no tolerance for guys being in her space. Cardin was a prime example, granted Six already hated the dick head but even when she wasn't provoked by him Six still reacted violently, and this went for ever male in the school, even when it came to the teachers she kept her distance.

This could just be a coincidence, Girls did tend to have a more intimate relationship with other girls than boys; for a little while Coco had assumed Six was just that, however the dance had changed things.

Six had been close to Pyyrha, Really close, her dance may have been bad but the unwillingness to get close to her partner hadn't been one of the reasons for that.

Coco wasn't sure about anything, nor was Velvet, who admittedly wasn't as curious as Coco, but wanted to do something for the girl if there theory was correct, But the way Six danced had been very close, admittedly Six was looking around all the time so she was probably just trying to copy what everyone else was doing, but still part of Coco couldn't ignore the idea.

"Well, I guess I'll find out tonight..."

…

Six felt ashamed, she was nervous and all she was doing was standing outside a friends door.

 _Don't be stupid, they invited you, why are you scared?_

 _What if this is another thing I'm supposed to know about? How will they react when they realise I'm clueless!_

 _Six you've already mentioned a bit about yourself to them, they'll understand if you don't get something, now open the dam door already!_

Steeling herself Six knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" Coco called from the other side.

"It's me, Six? You invited me?" Six said, wondering if she should run, she wasn't sure why but a part of her was telling her to run, that something was inside that room.

Before she had the chance to do anything the door was opened and Six wondered if her sense of danger was being mistaken for something else.

Granted she was feeling something, but what she wasn't sure, last time she check most girls didn't answer the door in see through nighties that clearly showed of the toned bodys and undergarments but Six could be wrong.

 _After all what the hell do I know about thee things?_

Six wondered if her standard Pyjamas where the right thing for this sort of event.

"Well come on in then!" Coco said, smiling widely as she ushered the Spartan in, who just looked confused as she stared at the girl.

"Coco I was gonna get the door!" A slightly indignant Velvet cried, Six turned to look at her, She to was wearing a nightie, though hers was solid and had less fluff on it, although it was shorter than Coco's.

"Sorry, I just didn't want to leave her standing outside! Anyway welcome Six." She said happily, Six nodded, standing around awkwardly, surveying the room.

The beds of Yatsuhashi and Fox had had there blankets stripped and where arranged on the floor, bowls of junk food Six would not have dared touch as a Spartan lay in front of them, the TV had a stack of DVD's near it and there was a weird box in the corner with a microphone attached to it, Six had no idea what it was for, or where she should sit her problem made sitting down on someone else's stuff a rather awkward move.

"Erm..." Six muttered, wishing she had some idea of what to do, this was awkward.

"Well get changed." Coco said, Six nodded and pulled out her Pyjamas. Coco's face fell.

"What?" Six asked, looking down at her garments, she was fairly sure these where expectable sleeping garments, no one else complained anyway.

"Six, are they the only Pyjamas you have?" Coco asked, looking at what the girl had brought over.

"Erm, yes why?"

"Six... that's gym shorts and an overlarge T-shirt." Velvet muttered, smiling weekly.

"It's all I've got, sorry." Six said, wondering if she was gonna get kicked out for not having the proper garments.

"It's not a problem, but we have some other options..." Coco smiled, gesturing to her cupboard. Six looked nervously at it.

"Are you sure? I mean I've slept in far more than this before..." Six muttered, Coco smiled, moving up towards Six, getting very close to her as she ran her fingers along Six's shoulder.

Six shuddered slightly, wondering if she should have let Coco lock the door.

"Come on Six it'll be fun!" Coco said, smiling happily as she worked her hands down her back, Six glanced at Velvet, her eyes conveying... Something...

"It'll probably be fun." The Rabbit girl commented, paying careful attention to Six's eyes; the Girl was confused, not scared or worried, Velvet nodded, it was probably okay to move on.

Six nodded, not sure what to think as Coco's hands reached the bottom of her shirt, carefully lifting it of over Six's head, the logic being that if Six wanted them to stop it wouldn't be hard of her to do so, however she didn't and soon the shirt was gone.

"Is this better?" Six asked, standing there in her cargo trousers and sports bra, Coco looked disappointed.

"Really Six? That's what you go for?" The girl said, an unmistakable note of disappointment in her voice.

"What's wrong with it? Is this the wrong choice for this sort of thing?"

Velvet just shook her head in embarrassment as Coco snorted with laughter.

"No, theirs no rules, but seriously Six that's what you go with as standard? You could pull of something way cuter than that."

"I didn't see the point." Six admitted. "No ones supposed to see it so what difference does it make? Anyway these are good to run in."

"That's not the point Six, but never mind, wonder if what you've got on below is more interesting..," Coco said, grinning evilly before sticking her hands around Six's waist and creeping her thumbs intot he waist band of Six's cargo trousers.

"May I?" She asked, looking at the Spartan.

"Sure... Wait!" Six cried, remembering to late that she had that problem, not that Coco didn't see it once she yanked them down.

"Gah Six! Why didn't yopu tell em you go commando!" Coco cried, Velvet was more on the ball however and noticed the other problem before Coco did.

"Six, why aren't you using anything?" She asked, noticing the Spartans awkward situation.

"What do you mean?" Six asked, going red as she tried to cover it, She normal wore stuff down there, she'd just skipped it this day because she'd ruined whatever she normal wore down there, the trousers would be more durable than the normal garments.

"Vel what's going on... Six are you on your period?" A red faced Coco asked, backing away quickly.

"A what?" Six asked, looking at the two,d id they know what was wrong with her?

"Six... you do know what a period is right?" Velvet asked quietly, Six just looked baffled in response.

"Erm, Isn't that another name for a full stop?"

Velvet just buried her face in her hands while Coco just looked awkward while Six stepped out of her trousers, being careful to not get anything on the carpet.

"No Six, not that kind, it's, well... Hang on!" Coco pointed a finger at Six dramatically. "Your Sixteen! How the hell do you not know what a period is? I mean look at you, Pubertys clearly started for you!"

"Wait... this is a sex thing?" Six asked, her brain starting to put together the reason why she might not have encountered this sort of thing before.

A silence held in the room after Six's last comment, eventually a very red faced Velvet respond.

"Yes Six, it's to do with your cycle..."

Six's brain made the final connection. A side effect of Spartan augmentation was sterilisation, this had happened when she was thirteen so it made sense that she hadn't encountered the problem... however.

"Hang on, Everyone goes through this?" Six asked, wondering what it was like for the boys.

"Yes, every girl goes through this Six, seriously how the hell have you not encountered anything about periods yet!?"

Six was about to answer, but Coco just grabbed her arm and dragged her to the bathroom.

"Come on Six where sorting this out!" She said, slamming the door shut.

Velvet laid back as she listened to what was going on.

"Coco what are you doing!"

"This is how we deal with these sort of things."

"Okay, how does that thing work?"

"Its simple, I'm just gonna put it in there..."

"Hang on what!"

"Don't worry it's perfectly natural."

"I don't care if its natural! Why is that going in there!"

"Look Six this is just how it works, now spread em!"

"No!"

"Six come on!"

"No! Stop trying to put that in there!"

"Six I promise I'll be gentle!"

"I don't care how Fucking gentle you are! What is that thing!"

"Its what girls put in there, now get them apart!"

"Why!?"

"Do you want that feeling to stay or do you want to do something about it?"

"..."

"Give that here." Six muttered.

"You don't know what your doing, I'm gonna do it, so get them apart."

…

"So Six you feeling better?" Velvet asked as Six left the bathroom, shuddering slightly.

"Well its not as bad as it was, is that a good thing?" Six said, looking at Coco, who just smiled inocently.

"Yeah, now lets get on with this thing!" She said with a tone of voice that indicated she wanted to get her plan back on track.

"Okay, why where you stripping me?" Six asked, remembering that's what they where doing before she learned more about her body than she ever wanted to.

"Oh yeah, well me and Vel suspected that because of your... erm..." Coco said, trying to find the right word to use.

"Spartan life style" Velvet interjected. Six wanted to giggle, that was more true than she realised.

"Yeah that, point is it occurred to us that you probably didn't have anything spectacular for sleeping in, it seams that if you don't need something you don't buy it..."

"Isn't that sensible?" Six interrupted.

"It's boring, Point is we decided to get you a present!" Coco Said happily, handing Six a box.

Six looked confused at the gift, it was a decent size box wrapped in red paper with the words 'Merry Christmas' written all over it with snowflakes and snow men papered all over it.

"Sorry about the paper, it's left over form Christmas."

Six shrugged dug her fingers under the paper and pulled the box open.

"Wow..." Six gasped, looking at the contents.

If it wasn't for the fact she owned two sets of armor more expensive than a spaceship this would probably be the most expensive thing she owned (That wasn't broken, Six was trying to figure out what to do with her dance dress before Yang found out about it)

The thing was a night gown like the one Coco had on, deep purple with a lighter rim around the top, Six just gaped as she held the thing up, she'd never come close to wearing anything like it before, it was so light.

Another glance inside the box also showed her it came with a set of lacy dark purple underwear Six didn't get the reasoning behind why it was so complicated, but she couldn't help but think they looked good.

"Well?" Velvet asked, looking hopeful at the Spartan.

"I, I don't, I've never..." Six was just dumbfounded, these two had just brought this for her, hang on...

"How do you know my size..."

"Six I measured you remember?" Coco said, looking at Six, who sudenly remebered the incident.

"Oh yeah, I forgot..."

"Are you gonna try it on?" Velvet eventually asked after a moment of silence. Six nodded.

"Yeah, erm... So should I?" Six asked, gesturing to the bathroom.

"Nah it's good, where all girls so it's okay!" A cheery Coco said.

Six was somewhat sceptical, Six knew full well Coco liked girls, but her girlfriend was in the room and well... she was just looking, it wasn't that bad, it's not like she minded them looking.

Six pulled her sports bra and got changed into the set, Coco squeed when Six had finished butting everything on.

"Well?" Six asked, painfully aware you could see basically all her injury's through the garment.

Coco responded by pulling her into a tight hug.

"Six you are too dam cute!" She declared as she hugged the girl, Six getting her face embedded in Coco's chest as she pulled her closer.

"She's right you know." Velvet said quietly, Six blushed.

"Now for one last thing!" Coco declared, smiling happily as she pulled something onto Six's head.

"Gah, what the!" Six cried as she felt her head. She had some kind of head band on, with felt cat ears poking out, Coco had also somehow managed to sick a dark purple bow onto her head.

Six was distracted as a flash went off.

Velvet was holding her camera up and smiling as she looked at Six.

"Your okay with this?" Six asked, pointing towards the ears.

"Erm, yeah; Coco actually wore some to make me feel better, she said until those guys stopped picking on me they where gonna have to except the girl they liked was part animal." The Faunus, smiling happily as she reminisced.

"But it was just a head band..." Six muttered, clearly confused.

"It was the thought and it worked!" Coco said happily.

"Yeah until a new group of ass holes showed up." Six muttered darkly.

"Yeah but that's how we met you! By the way did I ever thank you for that?" Coco asked, a sly smile on her face as she moved towards Six, her eyes half closed.

"Erm, yes, yes you did." Six said, backing up slightly, but amazed that she wasn't trying to run away, actually what was this feeling?

"Actually I didn't, you started questioning my leadership skills and I never actually got to say thank you, I think I should correct that and Vel you didn't thank her either did you?"

"No I didn't..." Velvet said, smiling as she finished putting something on her lips, Six didn't know why but a part of her was excited for what was going to happen and the rest was crapping itself.

"Erm... Guys?" Six said, noticing Coco putting the same stuff on her lips, a pair of wolf ears on her head as she moved closer.

The two didn't say anything, Six just stayed where she was, she didn't want to run, she liked what was happening, but she could also say she didn't have a clue what was going on.

Coco and Velvet moved until they where on either side of the very confused Spartan, until eventually the planted kisses on her cheeks.

The heat in the room sky-rocketed as the world went red, Six felt something explode from her nose as she fell backwards, thankfull there where pillows all over the floor because it meant it hurt a lot less than it normally did when she passed out.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 I didn't know that

"Urrrghh..." Groaned Six as she woke up, shocked to see herself in the same place she had been when she'd passed out.

"Hey Coco, She's is waking up." Velvet commented, Six turned her head to look at the speaker, she was still in her night attire and was looking at Coco, who was smiling guiltily.

"Well I think we got our answer there Vel." The other girl said, smiling happily as she helped herself to something out of the bowl next to her.

"We might have." The rabbit girl said with a small smile as she looked at the recovering Spartan.

"What are you two on about?" Six asked, thinking she might have detected an alterer motive behind asking her over, although what said motive actually was currently escaped her.

"Oh, erm..." Velvet said, apparently not realising the Spartan had been able to understand what the couple had been saying to each other. The poor girl had gone red and was trying to think of a subtle way of explaining what they had been trying to do.

"We where trying to see if you liked girls." Coco said bluntly, saving her girlfriend from having to think of anything.

The reaction from Six was not what they had been expecting.

"I thought that was obvious?"

Coco and Velvet looked at each other.

"Was it?" The two said in perfect synchronisation.

"Yeah,. Seriously you've seen who I hang out with right, of course I like girls, if I didn't CRDL would be the only team I could talk to."

"Hang on what about JNPR? There's two boys on that team." Coco pointed out.

"Yeah but there basically stuck to there respective girls, I don't think I would be able to avoid them."

"What does that have to do with anything!?" Coco asked, her face just looking completely baffled.

"Well if I didn't like girls how could I hang out with two boys who basically have a girl each glued to them!?"

"I repeat myself, what the heck are you on about!?"

The couple was just confused, however Velvet suddenly realised something, normally she wouldn't have considered it, but given that it was Six, the girl who could somehow reach sixteen without hitting a period...

"Six... You do know what a lesbian is right?" She asked tentatively, Six tilted her head in confusion and everything fell into place for Velvet, Coco got it once the Spartan answered.

"Er... No I don't. Should I?"

Coco slapped her face and Velvet just shook her head.

"That explains a lot!" Coco said, slowly dragging her hand down her face, frustration evident in her voice.

"I should shouldn't I?"

"Well Six, let me put it this way, what do you call me and Coco?" Velvet asked, watching as Six's brain worked overtime to figure out what was going on and all the funny faces and reactions that lead to.

"Erm... Velvet and Coco?" Six asked, praying she hadn't been getting it wrong all this time.

"Yes..."

 _Oh thank you!_

" ...But what are we?"

"A Faunus and a Human?"

"No Six, I mean the two of us, what do you call people like us?" Coco asked, hoping to the gods that Six would understand what she was talking about.

Six sat and thought, she had to get this right, mostly for her own sense of pride over anything else.

"..."

 _Come on girl your blowing it!_

 _I can do this! Come on, think! Think! Come on! Why is this so hard!_

Coco and Velvet just sat there, watching the poor girl sweat as she pounded her head in frustration, desperately trying to figure out an answer.

They could see she was struggling, she was pounding her poor head, her brian unable to render any kind of answer to this question.

She sat there for nearly a full minute thinking until eventually she was able to give an answer.

"...Huntresses?"

"Darrrgghhhh" Coco cried, falling over backwards (Flashing Six who went bright reds as she caught a glimpse of Coco's underwear) and grabbing at her hair and crying out in pain.

"Try again Six..." Velvet said quietly, before heading over to comfort her girlfriend.

"A couple?" Six tried again

"Close, but... Okay Six I'll just tell you, We are lesbians."

"Okay. Erm... what's a lesbian?"

"Someone who likes girls..." Six opened her mouther to respond however Coco kept going before she could say something. **"** **...In a romantic way!"**

Allot of things clicked in place in Six's mind.

"Wait... I'm a lesbian?" Six asked, looking at the pair.

"Well did you like us kissing you?" Coco asked. Six thought back to the kiss. She went red and nodded quickly, her mouth didn't feel like working properly.

"Would you like it if a boy did the same thing."

Six (Still bright red) Shook her head, shuddering at the thought.

"Well there you go, seriously Six how have you not at least noticed an attraction to anyone? You should have figured this out by now? What the hell have you been doing before you came here!?" Coco asked, Velvet slapped her as Six looked down.

"I, I was... Augmented, I don't know how, but there gone now, but they restricted stuff like this, I think I would have died if they hadn't but, it shut bits of me down... I don't know what happened... but, I, I, I don't know..." Six saw tears fall, they'd been coming a lot easier ever since she showed up on Remnant, what was wrong with her?

 _What's right with me would probably be a better way of putting it..."_

"Six, I, I didn't know..." Coco said, clearly upset and sad that she'd made Six cry. Six didn't like the fact she'd upset her by crying, but on the other hand she couldn't stop the crying, even if she wanted to.

She couldn't ignore it, there was a part of herself she had never known about, hell she didn't even know the term!

 _Oh grow up, its not like you would have even had the chance to use it!_

 _ **Well I should have, I should have been able to have something resembling a life! I was a Spartan! I was a savour for humanity! Didn't I deserve something of a life! I bet even after the war they would have kept using me, kept using them!**_

 _Oh grow up Spartan!_

 _ **No! What about them, what if Kat had been a lesbian!? What if she'd wanted to go with Carter!? What if he wanted to go off with her!? What the hell would they have done!?**_

…

 _ **That's what I thought.**_

"Six... Are you Okay?" Coco asked gently moving closer to the Spartan, who nodded, lookinbg up, tears still flowing, but her eyes could actually focus on something which was an improvement.

"Yeah, I was thinking about my friends, I'm glad I have you, cause they where in the same boat as me and... Well, I guess I just hope that they have people like you wherever they are... I don't want them to be like me..."

Six stopped talking, mostly because Coco and Velvet pulled her into a hug at that point, The warmth of them reminded Six of the memory of her Aunt, it was nice, she felt safe, Remanent felt... Safe. Impressive for a world where there where literal monster appearing out of nowhere with no goal other than to wipe out all of humanity. Six had these people with her and she liked it, she just wanted to stay here with them.

"There are worse people to be than you Six, your worst crime is that your lacking knowledge about a few things and from what you've said, it's not your fault." Coco said, her face softening for once, before it's usual evil grin returned. "Plus your fun in some ways, for example, I wonder what you would do if I did this!" Coco cried as she pulled out a pillow and swung at the Spartan...

…Who ducked because Spartan training was basically hard-wired into her brain and she would be dammed before she let an announced attack hit her.

A side effect of this was that Coco hit her girlfriend in the face with a pillow, Who to Six's surprise reacted by having most of her face go black, the only thing that showing was a single eye and her creepy smile.

"Erm Vel, I'm sorry I was trying to..." Coco babbled, looking scared as Six dived out of the way behind a bed, reaching over to grab a pillow (She had a feeling she might need it)

" _No mercy!"_ Velvet said, her tone changing completely as she looked at her girlfriend, the menace in her voice was palpable as Six poked her head out from the side of her hiding space, seeing the brute force and destructive power of Velvet punches as she hit two pillows towards her target, who flew backwards into the wall.

Six watched in horror as Velvets neck turned impossibly far as she looked at the Spartan, using her enhanced senses to find the Spartans hiding place.

" _No one escapes me!"_ Velvet declared, readying more pillows. Six tensed up she had to be ready, her weapon was clutched in her hands, getting ready to be used.

Six only just had time to duck out of the way of the pillows Velvet threw at her, acting fast she leapt back, bounced of the wall and swung her pillow; decking the Faunus in the face with her pillow.

Six stood proud as Velvet collapsed to the floor winded, until Coco hit her around the back of the head with a pillow.

"Hey, Coco what the hell!" Six gasped, looking at the girl. Coco grinned wickedly.

"No one hits my girlfriend like that!"

"But she just hit you into a wall!" The confused Spartan cried.

"Sense has no place in love!" Coco yelled, bringing her pillow into a giant uppercut hitting Six in the chin, knocking her over backwards.

"Okay screw it, I'm going after both of you!" Six cried, anger exploding all over her as she fought back.

For the next half an hour Team CFVY's room was nothing but a maelstrom of swinging pillows and feathers as the three fought, at one Point Team JNPR came in to ask them to keep the noise down, until Nora saw what was going on and joined in, which just made things louder and even more chaotic. A Beacon dorm was designed to hold four people with some degree of comfort, however their not made for four people to be having a pillow fight in, especially not a Remnant style pillow fight, which is like every other fight in Remnant; To put it simply, it was insanely acrobatic, follows precisely none of the laws of physics and somehow pillows where powerful enough to damage plaster walls and send people through them.

The fight did eventually end with the three of them crashed out on the floor (Nora left to when Ren bribed her with pancakes) panting for breath, feathers stuck in there hair and all of them thoroughly battered and bruised... from pillows.

"Why does nothing here ever make sense!" Six gasped, looking up at the ceiling.

"Where would the fun in that be!?" Coco responded, smiling happily as she wrapped her arms around Velvets shoulder.

...

"So now what?" Six eventually asked once they all had there breath back.

"In all honesty this was as far as we got, I suggest a movie." Coco suggested.

"Sounds good... I think?" Six responded.

"Great, I suggest..."

"Coco, Six is out guest shouldn't she chose what we watch?" Velvet interjected, Coco responded:

"I would but... Six have you ever seen a movie before?"

"Erm..." Six answered, thinking 'The guide to breaking someone's neck and other martial arts' probably wasn't what Coco meant.

"See, So how about this one!" Coco said happily, holding up a DVD case, Six barely got a chance to see the pink cover with two girls in there underwear kissing before Velvet grabbed it and tossed it across the room.

"Coco she's Sixteen!"

"And? What Sixteen year old hasn't seen a porno!?"

"What's a Porno?" Six asked.

"See Coco!"

"I do, she's missing a vital part of life, we need to show her that!"

"Coco I refuse to watch two girls screwing who aren't us!" Velvet yelled.

"Well if your up for it...?" Coco asked, hope in her voice.

"No Coco! I'm not doing it in front of Six!"

"What if I took my Bra off...?"

"No!"

"Well I'm taking it off anyway, if earlier was anything to go by Six's reaction will be adorable."

"Coco don't you dare!" Six and Velvet cried at the same time.

"Spoil sports!" Coco grumbled, Velvet reached forward and pulled something else out of the pile.

"How about this?" Velvet asked, holding up another pink box, although the girl on the cover was fully clothed, wearing what seamed to be a white swim suit a blue mini skirt and some white gloves. Her absurdly long blond hair going of screen.

"Velvet she's not gonna want to watch an anime!"

"How do you know, this show is awsome!"

"I thought we where watching a movie?" Six asked.

"It's a movie based of a show, don't worry it's perfectly accessible to new viewers, there's an explanation of all you need to know at the beginning."

"Yeah, but my choice is completely self contained and its purely Vale made..." Coco said, smiling happily as reached for the box Velvet had thrown. Six seeing Velvet growing angry quickly blurted:

"I like the look of Velvets choice! Sorry Coco your outvoted!"

That was basically how the rest of there evening went, the three of them watching movies, Coco even picked one that wasn't a 'Porno'

 _Whatever the hell that is..._

Heck Six even picked a movie, mostly by spreading them out and picking one at random, it was a film based on a popular fairytale, where four maidens helped an old man become less of a jerk and in return gifting them with magical powers. That much of the movie was apparently accurate, although apparently the epic battle with the five headed dragon in skimpy outfits wasn't a part of the original story, shame Six quite liked that bit.

Six also ate more sugar than she ever had in her life, developing a particular liking for chocolate, eventually taking the entire bowl away from the other two, who seamed more interested in making out by that point while Six ate chocolate.

Six also really liked the movie Velvet put on, it was cute and Six personally liked the fact that the world was saved via friendship with only the villain's dyeing, she wished she could pull of something like that.

Still though Six enjoyed the night, hell she even got a new sleeping garment out of it (Which was about five hundred times more comfortable than what she normally wore) And she now knew something about herself that she never would have even thought about before; the idea of having a partner had never occurred to her, heck maybe she would even get together with someone...

She then remembered she was an emotional wreck who barley understood some of the most basic concepts for most people her age, so romance probably wasn't going to happen, still at least it explained why she felt so weird while changing before a sparing match.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 This makes me feel like I'm back on reach

Six's morning was good, Coco and Velvet eventually managed to pry themselves apart and they had a tasty breakfast of whatever was left over form last night, which Six was perfectly sure would be good for her even if it was seventy five percent sugar.

After that Six got changed (Actually agreeing with Coco that she might want something better, her ODST trousers and shirt might be practical but they weren't exactly nice to wear) The Trio headed down to the airship bay to go meet Yatsuhashi and Fox as they got back from there trip.

The two boys didn't say anything when Six showed up, although Yatsuhashi did note the fact that all the girls where sporting nail polish they hadn't had on before (Which confused Six because she didn't remember having it put on, she personally suspected Coco) and that they all had some degree of sugar stuck to their teeth.

The Team (plus Six) headed back, Six was heading to the weapons bay to do more work on her suit, which was still not functioning, however halfway over they heard something, a noise that Six could identify without having heard this particular one before, it didn't take a genius to recognise an alarm when it went of.

" _Warning, Grimm infestation in downtown Vale, Hunters needed!"_

Team CFVY just looked at each other and nodded, tapping on there scrolls to get their lockers to fly to them, crashing down as the trip pulled out their weapons and gear. Six did the same, slipping into her ODST armor insanely fast, barley thirty seconds passed until Six was fully armored up, Sadly her hammer was currently lying on the floor of her room in bits (The Dust chamber had been glitching out and Six had been trying to fix it) so she pulled out an Energy Sword she'd taken from the yellow Elite the other day instead.

"Okay lets go!" Coco yelled, switching from party girl Coco to Leader Coco, instantly taking charge and issuing orders in such a way that even Six responded to instinctively.

The five charged towards the airship bay to get a ship, when a small snag was uncovered in there plan...

"I'm sorry I can't fly, I've been awake for the last six days making deliveries and I need sleep!" The frustrated pilot cried, Coco did not take it well.

"And we need to get into Vale you cretin! Get back in the dam ship!"

"Listen here lady, I can't!" He yelled, Six knowing they where wasting time and unwilling to put up with two different military groups arguing again (Ignoring the fact that Hunters weren't military... Nor where private airship pilots) Six barged past and ran to the cockpit.

"I'll fly, now get in!" Six called, the pilot looked shocked and wanted to get angry... but he hadn't been lying about being tired and passed out after Six shoved him over.

Team CFVY decided not to try and wake him, instead they scrambled onto the ship as Six took off.

"Six at least wait until where sat down before taking off!" Velvet yelled as Six lifted the ship into the air.

"No one on Reach ever complained!" She yelled as she slowly took the ship out of the dock until she had clear sky surrounding her, once she had that she gunned it.

Six tore through the air, surprising a good many actual pilots as she darted past them towards Vale.

Six looked down as soon as she broke the cloud layer, she could see the city and it did not look good. The Grimm had broken free from the middle of the city, some kind of town square was blown apart, leading into a tunnel that was letting a multitude of Grimm through. Giant snakes mixed in with tiny Creeps, Nevermores and DeathStalkers scrambled, flew and scuttled everywhere, Six saw a huge snake (King Taijitu to be precise) About to lung at a group of civilians, Six responded fast, firing up the ships guns and sending a barrage of bullets into the things head, reducing it to black flaky past.

Unfortunately King Taijitu have one head at either end of there body's and Six had just thoroughly annoyed the other one. It reared up to smash the airship, thinking fast Six dived form her seat, only stopping to slam the door release button.

 **"Everyone bale out!"** Six yelled as she sprinted back, Team CFVY didn't seam to get it but they listened to Six and the five jumped out just before the snake made contact.

The good news was that four of them would be fine from this fall, granted they where about 200feet in the air but that wasn't a huge problem if you have an aura... Six didn't and only realised this after she jumped.

The others fell as Six streamlined herself, she'd just seen salvation, all she had to do was hope she spotted her...

" **Nora"** Six yelled, the orange haired girl (Flying through the air with her hammer) turned her head and saw her, Six desperately reached out a hand and Nora took it, the pair flew though and crashed into a Grimm as Nora destroyed it with a well timed grenade form her hammer.

Six let go of her once they where near the ground.

"Thanks!" Six yelled, flashing Nora a thumbs up as she drew her sword; the ODST helmets HUD showing she had just over an hour left of time with the sword before it's plasma stores where used up.

 _Well an hours more than enough time to finish this!_

Six dived into the fray, her new sword swinging like crazy as it tore into Grimm, slicing them down without mercy.

Six watched in amazement as the Hunters around her fought, there styles unique as they carved the Grimm to pieces, Velvet ignored her weapon all together to just use her fists and feet a natural weapon. Fox used his blades to slice Grimm in half, Yatsuhashi didn't face any resistance as his sword arched gracefully through anything that met it and Coco... Well no creature in the universe has ever been more terrified of a Handbag than the Grimm that day as Coco's gun worked its magic.

It amazed Six how long the fight Didn't last, an infestation like this was something Six had figured would take at least some time to clear a break out this big, however it really didn't, it was amazingly quick to deal with as Professor Goodwitch and the Atlesian knights joined the fight, sealing the hole through which the Grimm had been piling in in an instant and gunning down any stragglers with mechanical precision.

While Six didn't feel like she needed to get near the hole now it was sealed she couldn't ignore the fact that she wanted to investigate the train car that had crashed though.

While everyone else celebrated the victory as the Atlesian knights started handing out relief packages and began work on general clean up Six headed towards the train, determined to get in before it became a crime scene.

"Six what are you doing here?" A familiar voice asked, Six turned and smiled to see Yang standing there, out of breath and sweating like a pig, her gauntlets barrels actually red from over use.

"I came down here to help in the fight, saw this train and wondered what was on board," Six explained as she jumped aboard.

"Well be careful, their might be another bomb onboard." Yang muttered darkly as she to stepped aboard.

"Bomb!" Six asked alarmed, turning to look at the Blond.

"Yeah, how do you think they got back into Vale? They blew a hole." Yang commented as Six looked around, flicking on her helmet light to see more of the interior... and then she noticed something in what Yang had said.

"They?" She asked as she noticed what she'd been looking for lying in the corner.

"The White Fang and that Neo girl who was working with that Torchwick guy." She explained Six walking over towards the crate asked.

"I thought she was captured?" She asked as she bent down to open the crate.

"Well apparently she got out, kicked the crap out of me actually." Yang admitted, looking down at the ground, a dark edge creeping into her voice.

"That bad?" Six asked as she flipped the lid, then before Yang could answer she let out an involuntary laugh.

"Ha! Of course I'd find this here!" Six cried, giggling as she tried to move the box.

"Find what?" Yang asked, the edge escaping her voice as she glanced into the crate.

"I, well... Yang, are you curious to know what Spartan me looked like?" Six asked, pointing into the box at the Lavender armor with Orange highlights contained within.

"Wait this is your set?" Yang asked, genuinely curious as she moved to get a better look.

"Yup, my good old Mjolnir Powered Assault armor, I'm not a fan of the bullet hole in the visor but hey at least that didn't kill me." Six said happily as she shunted the crate out of the train car.

"I'm guessing that's the result of the damage to the chest?" Yang asked, remembering a bit of Six's story.

"Yup, took an energy sword straight through the chest, burnt like crazy and man did hurt!"

"Yeah I can imagine, Six?"

"Yeah Yang?"

"Why do you look so dam happy about that!?" Yang asked, wondering how in hell the girl could have a bright happy smile stretched across her face while she talked about her violent death.

"Well it didn't work did it!" Six said happily as the rest of team RWBY came over, each taking a curious glance at Six's suit.

"You really used to be that tall?" Weiss asked as she looked at the ton of metal.

"Yup, seven foot tall and more expensive than a friggin starship." Six explained, fondly rubbing the helmet.

"And your sure you can't use it anymore?" Ruby asked, her silver eyes almost glowing as she looked over the suit.

"Ruby trying to wear Mjolnir armor without the augmentations results in the users death, the suit literally moves too fast and will crush the wearer to death, do not under any circumstances try to use it!" Six cried as she shuddered, she'd seen the test footage and it was not pretty.

"So it's useless?" Blake asked.

"Pretty much!" Six said shoving the crate along, hoping she could get a flight back home.

Her pushing though was interrupted when she encountered General Ironwood, who seamed to be investigating the results of the Atlesian knights deployment, made sense; it was their first deployment in an actual fight.

"Ah Miss Six good to meet you, I see you've found another suit?" He inquired as he greeted her. Six nodded happily.

"Yup, my suit actually." She said, beaming at her armor.

"Impressive, I would like a word with you if that's okay, its about the prisoner we took." Six looked confused.

"Yes of course, although... which prisoner?" Six asked, the General lead her away before saying.

"The Elite we took when you found your mech suit." He said, Six suddenly remembered the utter tank of an Elite they'd captured at that time.

"What about him?" Six asked, a worried tone slipping into her voice.

"He escaped in the riot started by Neo as she escaped." He explained, Six just looked bafled.

"Wait he was in a regular prison?" Six asked in disbelief.

"No, but he used a virus to shutdown the prison restraints, he was in a secret base under the prison, which doesn't exist and you haven't heard of." He said, emphasizing the last few words, Six nodded, she'd worked for ONI; she knew what that meant. "Anyway he escaped, he's being tracked but its becoming harder to keep track of, I just wanted to know if you had any idea what he was likley to do?"

Six thought for a second.

"His goal will probably be to reunite with the rest of the Covenant, if the traker holds up you might be able to find them all."

The General nodded.

"Yes that's what we guessed, although what intrigued us was that he bothered to break out Neo and Roman Torchwick."

"You said their was a riot though, didn't they get out in that?"

"No, The Elite successful managed to real ease them first and lead them out of the prison, he opened all the cells at the end to hide what he'd done, however the cameras caught his escape."

"So all three of them are out?" Six asked, The General shook his head.

"No, Roman fell behind and was caught in the riot, he yelled at them to get out, it was surprising to see the man had any selflessness in him."

"You can always be surprised." Six muttered darkly, thinking back to a scene where an entire fleet warped in just after they destroyed what they thought was the only ship coming.

"I suppose, anyway Six, do you have any idea what the Covenant are likely to do at their base for when we move in on them?"

"Their going to have Grunts guarding the perimeter, their expendable and make a lot of noise when they panic, which is what happens as soon as you kill one of them. Once inside your likely to find Jackles and Brutes as your main opponents. Be careful around Jackles, their crafty and will fight dirty, mostly because their not powerful enough to fight a human directly, if you can get past the shields they carry your fine. Brutes however... Are a very different story. Brutes are amazingly strong and take allot of ammo to bring down, their energy shields are on par with a Spartans and the strength is much higher." Six explained.

"And what about these Elites? What are they likely to do?"

"Elites will only seriously join the fight once their comrades are down, some can turn invisible and most of them prefer energy swords, one of these." Six explained, flicking her hand and igniting the blade she carried.

"Impressive, does anything resist them?" The General asked looking at he blade.

"Nothing I've encountered, if someone swings at you dodge unless you have a sword yourself."

"Very well, anything else we should know?"

Six thought for a second before eventually saying.

"Yes, theirs another faction in the Covenant, and their by far and away the most dangerous creatures they have, Hunters, their about twelve feet tall, weigh over four and a half tons armed with a plasma canon built into their arms and a shield made out of the same material of their spaceships, they don't talk and can crush a Spartan instantly, on top of that their lightning fast and their armor has few week points, if you see one aim for the exposed material because you'll never penetrate their armor." Six finished, the General looked down at the serious look on the Spartans face.

"Their that bad?"

"Imagine trying to kill a Grimm pack alone with a toothpick and a broken leg." Six said. "That would be easy compared to trying to kill a Hunter unprepared."

"I'll make a note."

"Make sure that you do, You don't want to lose anyone because of miscommunication. Anything else sir?" Six asked, to her surprise he nodded.

"Yes actually, although this is a much happier subject." The General explained. "You see, we figured out what that Virus you stopped was supposed to do. It's a back door into our systems, the uploader would have been able to hack our systems and gain control over everything in the Atlesian military, which includes every single one of the Atlesian Knights."

Six gasped, you could do a lot of damage with a robot army under your control.

"I have never been so glad I chose to leave something early."

"You should be, anyway because of this act it has been decided you deserve something for your service."

Six baulked.

"Sir I don't..."

"It's already done, Professor Ozpin agreed to it and helped set it up."

"Set up what?" Six asked somewhat nervously.

"This." He said with a smile, handing her a document, a small plastic card attached to it, Six took it and read what it said and then looked up in shock.

"Sir... Is this mine?" She asked, looking down at the sheet, a bank statement, a bank statement with a very large number written in and Noble Six written as the account holder.

"Yes it is."

"Why sir? I mean Huntresses aren't paid this much for one job..." Six said, fairly confident about her statement.

"Your right their not, what this is is your first pay check."

"I... what?" Six asked, completely baffled.

"You served as a special forces lieutenant for thirteen years without pay, what you have there is what the Atlesian equivalent would have made over that time if they never brought anything in that time, I felt you where owed it given what you've been through and you'll need something to set up a life for yourself. Given I have a certain amount of sway over the Atlas council and you saved us form a potential disaster I managed to convince them..." He was stopped at that moment because Six had hugged him, throwing her arms around him, tears flowing from her eyes, she couldn't speak, she just stood their and cried into his chest, unable to think of anything to say in response.

Eventually she let him go as he smiled at her.

"You're more than welcome Miss Six, although if you'd like to make more..."

"Sir with the amount of zeros their I cant think I would run out in any less than thirty years, why would I need more?"

"Good point, although I do have a job I'd like to offer you if your interested."

"What is it?" Six asked, legitimately intrigued, what job would a General of a kingdom she didn't live in want her to do?

"I have a representative competing in the Vital festival, her circumstances are... Unique... It's because of you she's not in extreme danger right now, I would like you to continue to watch over her?"

"Like a spy?" Six asked, trying to contextualise what she was being asked.

"No not at all, I want you to let her room with you, I understand you don't have a Team at Beacon." He explained, Six didn't need to think any longer.

"Of course I will sir, you've done so much for me I have to do something..."

"No you don't, you already earned what your holding and you will be paid for this, however if you accept the job I'll tell her the news."

"Yes I accept."

 _How hard can it be to room with someone? Everyone else at Beacon manages to do it fairly easily._

"Great, she'll explain the details of why she's their once she's arrived, obviously this informations classified."

"I understand."

…

Six was perched on the edge of her bed the next day, polishing her old helmet, having just fixed the bullet hole in the visor when she heard the knock on her door.

Six stood up and walked over, opening the door smiling at the Ginger newcomer.

"Hello friend! My name is Penny Polendina; it's a pleasure to meet you!"


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16 Introducing my Android Roommate

Six took a second to look over her roommate as she entered, The girl looked about seventeen, she had ginger hair that reached down to her neck, a pink bow tied behind her head, actually quite cute green eyes shone out a she looked at Six, who smiled and introduced herself.

"It's nice to meet you penny, I'm Noble Six, although I prefer to just go by Six."

"It's a pleasure to meet you!" She beamed once again, Six nodded.

"Noted, would you like to come in? You are sharing the room with me after all, not the corridor outside of it." Six said, gesturing the girl inside the room. Penny eagerly stepped in and looked around.

"Wow, this space is bigger than I expected, I heard the rooms at Beacon where big but not this big."

"Yeah this rooms been converted, used to be a changing room, seams a bit of a waste to have just one person in it..." Six then shook her head and smiled. " ...But that's okay, theirs two people now."

Penny nodded, then looked up and asked.

"So if where sharing a room... are we friends?" She asked.

Six had been under assault from many things in her life; Rifle fire, explosives, Plasma, tanks, shrapnel bombs, shotguns, alien crystals, aircraft, ect... However never had she tried to fight against something so powerful, it was cute, it had orange hair and she was making Six's heart beet at a million miles an hour.

"Erm... Sure? It would be better for us to get along than..." Six started but never finished because Penny hugged like a bear and had more force than a car crusher.

"Sensational! This is perfect another friend!" Penny cried happily, seemingly unaware of Six's discomfort to the hug.

"That's _Ack!_ Wonderful... Penny..." Six said, still in the girls death grip.

"Yes friend?" Penny asked, Six was about to ask her question but got interrupted as someone knocked on the door, well the wall next to the door actually because the door itself was still open.

"Hey Six, you left your door open so... Oh!" A confused Velvet gasped as she walked in on Six receiving a bear hug from Penny.

"Hi Velvet." Six said from within Penny's arms.

"Hey Six... Look I just came by, I thought you might like this." She said, holding up a box, Six recognised the figure on the cover as the same one from the movie velvet had put on the other night. "Its the series the movie was based on, you seamed to enjoy it and I thought... Erm..."

"Thanks, just leave it on the bed." Six said, still stuck in Penny's vice-like grip.

"Okay..." The Rabbit girl said quickly, depositing the box and slowly edging out of the room, to slowly for her girlfriend apparently...

"Yo Velvet what's keeping you?" Coco called, walking into the room and laughing at the scene in front of her.

"Hello Coco." Six said, her face flat as she looked at the girl.

"Hey Six, who's your friend?" Coco asked, trying (And Failing) to keep a straight face.

"This is Penny, she's my roommate now." Six said, wiggling slightly, it had to be possible to get out of the girls grip, although that was proving trickier than it should have been.

"It's a pleasure to meet you!" Penny Said happily, looking at Coco, waving at her, a chance Six tried to take to get out, but was thwarted as the arm moved back into place.

"Same, not sure I can say the same about your clothes though..."

"Coco!" Velvet cried, looking both angry and embarrassed at her girlfriend.

"Is their something wrong with my dress sense?" Penny asked, amazingly to Six Penny didn't seam to be angry, not in the slightest; she seamed genuinely worried about the state of her dress sense. not so worried about crushing her roommate... who still couldn't get out of her friendship hug.

"No no it's fine... But seriously girl you could do better..."

Coco said as Velvet (Apparently displaying more tact than her partner) darted forward and grabbed Coco's wrist.

"Well it was nice meeting you Penny, but we **Really need to go now!** " Velvet said, a dangerous edge creeping into her voice as she dragged Coco out of the room.

"Well same here, if you ever want advice on clothing Six knows where my room is. Oh and Six!" Coco called, grabbing the door frame as Velvet attempted to drag her out of the room. "Nice work, really going full on now you know, good for you, I wish you luck in seduc..." Velvet panicked and pulled harder, flinging Coco out of the room before slamming the room shut with an:

" _EEP!"_

"Well that was strange." Penny said. Six nodded.

"Yeah it was, Penny could you..." Six began to say, before her door was opened again.

"Hey did I hear... Penny!" Ruby cried with happiness, diving on to the girl and pulling her into a hug, which unfortunately involved wrapping her arms around Six as well, specifically around her head.

"Gah! Ruby!" Six said while being drowned out as Penny cried:

"Ruby! Oh my goodness it's so good to see you again!"

Six hoped Penny would return the hug... She did not, she just let Ruby hug her while keeping her grip on Six; unfortunately because of Ruby's hug Six couldn't ask Penny to let go, she could still breath because Ruby's arms where only just low enough to block her mouth leaving her nostrils free.

"Same to you Penny, where have you been, I haven't seen you since the dance!" Ruby cried in delight, really this reunion of friends should have made Six happy, being literally in the middle of it though really didn't. Also...

 _Since the Dance? The dance was three days ago! How clingy are you Ruby?_

"I was preparing to move here, my Father wasn't keen on the idea but when it was suggest I room with Six he agreed."

"That's great! Now I get to see you more often and I can show you around town, theirs this really cool weapons shop with the best gear and theirs a music place, a dust store that gives me a discount every time I go their, Oh and Weiss showed me to this amazing bakery that does the best cookies!"

"That sounds delightful, we should go sometime!"

 _Yes please do, Soon!_

"Oh we totally should! Lets go right now, I'll go get everyone!" Ruby cried, letting go of penny and shooting out of the room, leaving a trail of rose petals behind her.

 _Oh thank you!_

Six gasped for air as Penny kept the hug up, Six only realised she was missing out on getting out when Ruby darted back with the rest of her Team and Team JNPR in tow.

"Hey Penny, its... Nice to see you again." Weiss said awkwardly, clearly not sure how to react to the girl.

"It's a pleasure." Blake said, her head still in the book she'd presumably been reading when Ruby dragged her out of her room.

"Hey Six, enjoying the welcome?" Yang asked, smiling at Six who scowled at her, she wanted to punch the blond in the face so much, but she was still stuck in Penny's arms and couldn't do much beyond scowling.

"Who are you?" Nora asked, the rest of Team JNPR conveying the same question non verbally.

"Greetings friends, it's a pleasure to see you again that goes to you to; potential new friends!" Penny said, turning around to talk to them, unfortunately she didn't end her hug and as Such Six got dragged around, now with nothing to look at but team RWBY and JNPR. Most of whom where trying hard not to laugh.

"Hey, I'm Jaune." The blond said, holding out his hand.

 _Yes take it! Take it!_

Well she did, but to do it she moved forwards (Still dragging the Spartan.) and let go of her hand enough to shake Jaunes.

 _Oh come on!_

"I'm Penny, it's a pleasure to meet you!" The girl said happily, shaking the hand of each member of Team JNPR, still without letting Six go.

"Well shall we head out?" Ruby asked, pointing towards the door, smiling happily.

"Yes lets!" Penny cried, beginning to walk out, at which Six decided to do something drastic to be let go, specifically she bit into the girls arm... Except it hurt her more than anything else.

"OWWW!" Six cried, wondering what her drill instructors would be thinking about her getting hurt via biting someone, she couldn't see proud faces on them.

"Oh my god Six are you okay!" Penny cried, finally letting go of Six, who staggered away, massaging her guts as her breathing finally returned to normal and she was able to feel her stomach again.

"Yes... but ARRGH! Someone's been drinking their milk." Six muttered darkly, her teeth hurt badly as she rubbed her aching jaw.

"Erm... Yes, that is what I have been doing..." Penny said, looking around awkwardly.

"Lets head to town now!" Ruby blurted quickly, Six looked at her; did she know something about Penny she didn't? It could just be a coincidence but it seamed strange that Six had noticed something off and Ruby had changed the subject.

 _I'll ask about that once where on out own._

…

The trip into town was fun, Penny was talking to Ruby on most of the trip, Six talked with Nora, mostly trying to work out who had the better hammer, While the Gravity hammer was much better for Melee fighting on the grounds you only had to get kind of close to your target to affect them, Magnhild had a ranged attack built in, Six argued that it wasn't great because you had to transform the weapon and the mechanism would weaken the weapon's shaft while in Melee mode.

It was a fun trip, once in town the groups first stop was to get food, Mostly because Nora was hungry and their was no point arguing with Nora when she was hungry.

They stopped at a Curry place, which made Six and Penny very happy because neither of them had had it before and if the two had one thing in common it was a love of new foods. Even if they weren't good the thrill of new food was enough to make Six's day, especially if she wasn't obliged to finish everything because it was all the refugees had and they where sacrificing food for themselves so the Spartan could work at her best.

However today was not one of the days where Six left half a meal, today was one of the days where she went back for fourths and only stopped because Nora got board of eating (Six had the impression that Nora was never full, she just had a point where eating stopped being so fun and she wanted to go do something else)

After that Six final got a chance to talk to penny on her own, The explanation she gave while they where looking around the store was that she wanted to show Penny something she'd found, it wasn't the best lie, even Six would admit that; However it worked and while in the dairy aisle Six turned to Penny.

"Penny, I was informed their where some unique circumstances around you being here and why I was chosen to oversee you, I believe it would help if you told me about these circumstances if you want me to be able to do my job."

"I... This isn't the best place..." The girl said, suddenly getting nervous and rubbing her arm while looking at the ground. Six looked up and down the aisle.

"Well no ones around at the moment..." Six pointed out, pennny looked awkward before eventually looking at Six.

"Well, I, no your right, Six... I, I was..." Penny took a deep sigh before looking up. "I, I wasn't born... I was made..."

"I don't understand." Six said simply, keeping her face natural as she looked at her, Penny seamed to be trying to figure out a way of explaining her problem.

"I was made, underneath my skin... It's just hydrualics and steel... I'm not a proper human. I'm an artificial being who just happens to be able to produce and Aura." She said saddly. Six just looked at her.

"Okay that's unexpected... But your still a human, heck you can make an Aura; I can't do that. Hell I'm jealous as fuck!" Six cried, looking at the girl, who just tilted her head in confusion.

"You can't generate an Aura?"

"Nope! Anyway that's not what's important, Look Penny I knew someone right, she had some machinery instead of flesh and blood and she was still human, why are you any different?"

"I guess so... It just feels wrong sometimes, if I hadn't met Ruby..."

"You two do know each other..." Six muttered, glancing in the direction the red head had been the last time she looked.

"Yeah, she was the first person I told... She said the same thing you did..."

Six smiled at the android and laughed.

"Then that's the majority vote, here's an idea, start listening to us. I get how you might feel less than human, believe me I know what that's like, But listen, you are human, same as me, even if I haven't got it down fully yet I'm gonna keep going. You should to..." Six said, trailing of as she Saw Penny's face again, the expression was just...

 _She's adorable..._

"Six!" Penny cried, pulling Six into another hug.

" _Ahk! Penny to tight!"_ Six gasped as most of the air was forced out of her.

"Oh sorry, I forgot hugging like that's not a normal reaction... Oh my god I did that the entire time I was in your room! I am so sorry!" Penny cried, letting go of her. Six smiled weekly as she massaged her guts.

"It's okay, I'm okay with physical contact... just not so tight!" Six said, poking her ribs to test if they where broken, if it was agony than the answer was probably yes.

"Okay, Should we go back to the others now?" Penny asked.

Six nodded, grabbing something of the shelf first.

"Yeah, I only came down here to grab one thing anyway." Six said, her box in hand.

"Oh, what's that?" Penny asked, looking at the box in Six's hands.

"It's for... things, I don't wanna have to keep taking ones of Coco..."

"What are they for?" Penny asked. Six smiled.

"You don't wanna know, if you don't do this than be glad some details where skipped over... Wait how correct are you down their?" Six asked, realising to late that that was not something she should be asking to someone she just met that day.

 _Stupid social niceties..._

"Erm... I think its correct down their, although I've never had anyone to check against..."

"Oh. Erm..." Six really didn't know how to answer that...

"Huh! Ytou could show me some time!" Penny said happily. Six went red.

"Er... Sure, yeah lets do that... Okayletsgomeetbackupwiththemnow!" Six shouted, going even deeper red as she sprinted of up the aisle.

 _This girl is gonna be the death of me I know it!_

Six also had another thought in her head as she ran.

 _Coco must never know!_


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17 Dammit Coco!

Six's days after Penny moved in where... interesting. That's the word, interesting.

Most notably Six was suddenly forced to think about something other than herself and what she felt like doing. Penny was Six's charge and it was her job to look after the girl while she got used to Beacon.

So what this translated to was a lot of time helping the girl memorise Beacons layout, here class where and things it was important **Not** to say to people.

Penny wasn't as bad as Six was, she at least understood why you don't talk about a lot of things and was happier doing things because they where fun, but that didn't stop the fact that she hadn't really been out in a city without Atlesian guards or military around.

The best example of what was wrong that stood out for Six had been about a week after Penny had moved out. Six was showing Penny around town and the two had decided to stop at an ice cream store because Penny was curious and Six was basically addicted to sugar (Something she justified to herself by running around Beacon twice every morning and afternoon.) and was always happy to ingest stupid amounts of the stuff.

Anyway Six had made their first order and everything had been going fine, until Penny wanted seconds.

"Six?" Penny said, trying to get the girls attention, Six looked over her ice cream to look at Penny.

"Yeah?" The Spartan asked, taking another mouthful of ice cream into her system, she had eight scoops to work through and was determined to finish the thing herself.

"Can I get seconds?" The android asked, Six nodded.

"Sure just go up and order." Six responded, picking out one of the four flakes and munching down on it.

"Erm... Yes, I can do that..." Penny said, looking around awkwardly.

"Penny you have gone up to a counter before right?" Six asked.

 _You hadn't until three months ago._

 _Yeah and? I did it the first time without breaking a sweet._

"Erm..."

 _Dammit!_

"Penny, just how over protective is your Father?" Six asked.

"He does worry a lot, I'm not sure why, I mean I know I was expensive but I didn't think..." Penny sat their in thought.

"When he asks you not to do something, how does he ask it?" Six inquired, shoving her desert aside to look Penny in the eyes.

"Oh he's not mean!" Penny said, apparently working out the track Six's brain was going on. "He's just worried, I know he means well, but I had to beg to participate inn the tournament."

"Hey at least he's worried about you, my... Employers, it's the only way to describe them; When they wanted me to not do something they just ordered it and I would just freeze up and not do anything. I never even questioned it... Now though, well lets just say I'd have more than a polite response to give them." Six said, smiling happily, the image of a bald ONI prick in her head, Six had fun imagining him to try getting her to do something she didn't want to now. The image of his skull plastered against the wall made her smile.

"I didn't know..." Penny said, looking at the ground, Six smiled happily, reaching out and gently easing her head back up.

"That's because I didn't tell you, the reason I didn't tell you is because it doesn't matter, who I was doesn't matter because I wasn't anyone. Now though, now I'm me; and I'm happy being me, I choose to go out and do whatever I want, look at me I'm eating a desert made for four people by myself because I want to and you can do something similar, your you and you cann do what you want now, you are you; and, well... I like you." Six said, going red as she realised she was touching the girls skin and instantly retracted her hand.

"Thank you Six." Penny said, smiling at the girl standing up. "And your right! I'm not going to let anything stop me!" She said, happily standing up and returning with... well...

"I thought mine was excessive..." Six giggled, looking at what Penny was holding.

"It's got a bit of everything in it! I don't know which is my favourite so I'm going to eat them all!" Penny said, Six smiled and was about to respond when Six heard someone familiar say.

"Dammit all the booths are full!" Coco cried, Six leant out and looked at her, Coco and Velvet where hear, judging by how nicely they where dressed and how they had their arms wrapped together the pair where on a date.

"Oh, it's your friends." Penny said happily, Six noticed she wasn't leaning out to look, she was focused on her ice cream.

 _Does she have X-ray vision?_

Rather than wonder what her roommates mechanical body was capable of Six elected to fix Coco's seating issue.

"Hey Coco!" She called, The Beret wearing girl turned around surprise, Six grinned at her. "I know it's not perfect, but we got room over here!"

Coco shot six a thumbs up and the pair went to order, sitting down a few minutes later, they had much smaller portions which only made Six and Penny's endeavours seam even more outrageous than they already where.

"Thanks Six, been wanting to try this stuff for months." She said, taking have first spoonful and going into almost orgasmic bliss as she took her first bite.

Velvet also smiled at Six.

"Thanks for letting us sit here."

"No problem, its not like those other seats where doing anything..." Six said, glancing at Penny to see if she was bothered by the other two sitting with them, apparently not though as she just looked at Velvet and said:

"You have very nice ears." Penny said before returning to her ice cream.

"Erm... Thank you?" Velvet said, looking somewhat confused before starting on her own dish.

The four of them enjoyed their time just eating their ice cream, it was a pleasant experience, however once you eat eight scoops of ice cream it has to leave so Six got up to deal with it, a dew seconds later Coco did the same thing, although she had different reasons for getting up.

"Hey Six?" Coco said, leaning against the wall and talking to Six through the cubical wall.

"Yes?"

"So you got a thing for that Penny chick or...?" Coco grinned in satisfaction as six 'Eeeped' from inside the cubical, finishing up quickly and darting out to look at Coco.

"Guessing that's a yes." The Fashionista said, a smile on her face as she looked at the embarrassed girl in front of her.

"I, well, yes of course I do, have you looked at her!" Six blurted.

"Well not as much as you obviously, I mean I haven't seen her changing..." Coco giggled internally, it was far to easy to fluster Six.

"I, I haven't!"

"Sure, look Six you've so blatantly got a thing for her its amazing how unsubtle it is, are you gonna do anything about it?"

Six looked at the ground, unsure of what to answer.

"Your not telling me your not going to do anything?"

"I, I don't know if she'd... if she..."

Coco smiled, putting an arm around Six's shoulder.

"I get it, That's happened to me before actually; my first major crush; well she rejected me... Hard." Coco's grin vanished form her face as she looked down at her hand. "It wasn't fun, I wont lye to you about that, getting rejected... especially in such a brutal matter hurts, badly."

"Why are you telling me this?" Six asked, looking up at Coco. Who let a small smile to return to her face.

"Because it was then, as that bitch walked off leaving me their crying something happened, an adorable Rabbit Faunus saw what happened and not wanting her teammate to cry she invited her to see a movie that weekend and as they talked and interacted like that, truly interacted not just doing homework or yelling to each other during a fight. They realised something, their was something their, so they did it again, they went to see more movies, ate out together went clubbing and then eventually they where a couple. None of that would have happened if I hadn't worked up the courage to ask that other girl out, I would have never met my Girlfriend, I wouldn't have these amazing memory's with her, You still probably wouldn't know you even liked girls, all this because I did it despite knowing it could go wrong."

"Why is everyone else smarter than me?" Six asked, Coco sniggered.

"Trust me I aint, I've just fucked up more often, and the only way you'll fuck up more is to keep trying, I'm not saying do it now, but if you like her and want to know her better, well nothings going to happen on its own is it?"

Six nodded.

"You're right... but not now..."

Coco nodded.

"That's fair, now lets go before they wonder what where doing in here."

…

Coco's advise was forever in the back of Noble Six's brain in the weeks that followed, while as more time passed she was even more convinced that she did want to ask Penny out, it also turned out she could think of a large number of reasons to keep putting it off.

The biggest problem was that Penny and Six weren't really alone that often, Granted they shared the same room but Six mostly just wanted to sleep when she went their and was to tired to ask (Or at least that's what she told Coco) any other time of day there where to many people around, most notably Ruby.

Six couldn't blame the girl for wanting to see her friend again, if she could see her friends again she would dive on it in an instance; however their was no way of getting around the fact that personal moments where hard to find when their was a third wheel sitting next to you.

Still though Six was happy just top be able to have time with the girl, she was just so much funt o be around and Six honestly thought she was adorable.

But despite Six's frustrations in her love life otherwise business was as usual, classes happened, Six took every chance she could get to fight Cardin in sparing, over all ti was the same, until Ruby came to her and penny one day while they where watching the show Velvet had given Six, they where currently near the end of the first season and where enjoying themselves and then their was a knock on the door.

"Yeah?" Six called, pausing the episode as Ruby pushed the door open.

"Hello Ruby!" Penny said happily from the edge of her bed, Ruby smiled.

"Hey guys, look, My teams got a mission in the Emerald Forest today, something to do with the security beacons malfunctioning or something, anyway I was wondering if you wanted to come with us?" She asked, Six was confused.

"Wait you can just invite random people onto your missions?"

"Yup, the Emerald forest is kinda Grimm haven and it helps to have extra people around, so you wanna come?"

Six looked at Penny.

"I'm gain if you are." Six said simply.

"Then lets go, I've never fought a real Grimm before!" She beamed, leaping out of bed and cracking part of the floor with the force of the impact.

"Opps."

"It's fine, let me suit up and then lets go." Six said, reaching for her ODST armor set, as she was changing she wondered what this mission was going to be like, mostly just board, Grimm weren't much of a challenge (Six personally was developing a theory that stated the main reason Huntresses fought the way they did was to stop themselves going crazy from boredom) However if she'd known everything that was going to come from this mission, well... lets say she wouldn't be board.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18 Wait Who!

"I hope this mission goes better than my last one." Six said as the trekked down to the forest.

"What do you mean, you found a suit of power armor the last time you did a mission, that's amazing!" Yang cried, looking over to the girl who was currently wearing the armor. (which Six and Ruby had finally finished rebuilding, new weapons and lavender paint job done.)

"Yes but it dragged on fro three months, I don't think I want to be away from Vale that long."

Six's answer sounded convincing, however Blake knew what Six would actually miss.

"You just don't want to be away form the canteen that long don't you?"

Six scowled.

"So what!? Tell me you're not gonna miss having proper food!" Six shot back.

"I never said that." Blake said, a sly smile crossing her face, Six wanted to argue back, however Penny started to say something so Six shut up.

"It can't take that long can it? I mean where just checking up ona couple of security nodes right?"

"Nah we should be done in a day if where quick, Hey Six!" Yang cried, getting distracted a they reached a circle of trees.

"Huh?" Six said, until she recognized the trees.

"What is it?" Ruby asked, Six smiled.

"It's nothing, although I wanna check something..." Six said, she knew the monument couldn't last forever, however it had been a month, it was worth at least having a look to see how it was doing.

She clambered out of the suit and looked for the hole she'd made to get in the last time.

"Er... is this going to take long?" Weiss asked, Six suspected she just wanted the mission done quickly because it would reflect well on their team, Six smiled back.

"Just go on ahead, I've got the location on my Scroll and the suit flys, I'll catch up once I'm done." Six said, finally finding the hole she was looking for.

Six tried to get through the hole... until she got stuck.

"Dammit." Six muttered, trying to find a good place to get a grip so she could pull herself through, until she heard Blake whisper something, Yang to laugh, then for the blond to whisper something. Then Six felt a pair of hands on her butt.

"Gah who's!" Then Six felt herself pop through and crash onto the ground.

"Are you okay friend Six?" Penny asked, Six face then did two things. One: went red because her crush had her hands on her butt. Two: adopted a pissed of face.

 _Wait, how did Blake... Wait Velvet... I'm gonna have words with her._

"Yeah I'm fine." Six said. "Now get going, I'll catch up."

The rest then left, Six smiled as she saw the tree in the middle was basically untouched. She re read the words she'd written... then laughed.

"Ha 'Jun-266 Never seen, never missed... Oh boy that..." Six sighed, finishing in her head.

 _That's not a good choice of words in retrospect, I miss him._

Six just sat their for a bit, once she knew for sure the others had left she sighed and looked at the tree. Their was so much she wanted to say, so much she could have said, but in the end she couldn't think of anything, all she could do was sit their, eventually getting up and going to leave, but she stopped, turning around to look at the tree. She opened her mouth for a second, trying to say something... but she couldn't eventually she just left; her monument just stood their, still as Jun when he was about to take a shot.

...

"So the security nodes in here?" Six asked gesturing into the cave. She'd returned to the group a few minutes ago. Her Scroll answered.

"Yes the node should be right in their." Professor Port said, Six nodded leaving the mech suit outside, I wouldn't fit inside the cave and if she got in a fight with it in the cave the explosives would be useless, too much danger of bringing the cave down on top of them.

"Hey Six your here!" Ruby called as Six jumped down.

"Yup this the thingy?" Six asked, looking at the white tower.

"Yes, something's been done to it, we've been running a diagnostics to try and find out what its for." Weiss explained, pointing towards a red bow stuck to the side of the tree.

"That logo looks familiar..." Six muttered, sure she'd seen it somewhere before, although unhelpfully the exact place escaped her at the moment.

"I thought the same thing, I'm sure its significant in some way." Port said from the Scroll. "Wait, where getting something its a transmitter, hold on that signals not the same..."

"What is it?" Six asked, if another signal was intercepting then their was a possibility it was the Covenant and if they where behind the box...

"Patching it through." Port said, their was a crackle of static before something came through, Six's heart fell, she was right, Sangheili could be heard clearly coming through, meaning only Six could understand what was being said.

" _...Is it powerful enough?"_ An Elite said, everyone started to ask what was being said but Six shushed them, she had to hear this.

" _No, it's limited to the main land."_

" _Our brothers may be their."_ The first Elite responded, it's 'Brother' wasn't convinced.

" _Why would they be there? We where together on that blasted rock..."_ Six's fist's clenched. _" ...We are alone, I still say we should try to find a better transmitter, we might find the Covenant out their, we might be able to continue on the great journey!"_

" _Its possible, but we'd still have to head to the mainland."_

It was then that bullets started flying, the transmission cut out but before it did Six heard something.

" _Brothers get ready their back!"_ The transmission cut out just as Six heard a familiar plasma charge started building up.

"Did you trace that signal?" Six asked instantly, looking intently at her Scroll as a series of coordinates appeared on screen.

"Yes, it's coming from an abandoned island, Six did you understand what that transmission said?"

"Yes and it's nothing good, we need to get to that island."

"Six we can't just send six students out to a random island..."

"Will you send me or not?" Six asked, her eyes hardening.

"No, Six what did that transmission say..." Six turned of her Scroll, she needed to get to that island.

"Six where are you going!" Ruby called as Six pulled herself up a ledge and out of the cave.

"I'm going to that island, I've got the location on my Scroll and I have to go."

"Six wait!" Weiss cried, looking as Six clambered into the suit.

"No, there are people on that island and I'm going to help them, Professor Ozpin might let you go get me back and yo can help, but please for now go back, I can't let those people..." Six gripped the control sticks hard. "I'll be back I promise." Six said as her engines exploded into action, her suit shooting into the air, Six saw the rest of them run out below, yelling something she couldn't hear.

Six knew full well why she was going, even if she was delusional. Those gun fire noises she'd heard sounded familiar, to familiar. Six was fully willing to admit she was probably crazy, in fact she was probably insane but that gunfire sounded very familiar to a BR55 Battle rifle.

Six knew the chances of it being what she was hoping for was tiny, the Covenant had tried to give the White Fang some and Six was convinced she couldn't have stopped every deal the two factions had tried to make, or some random civilians could have found some, it was totally possible, but maybe, if she was lucky... it could be someone from Reach, she had to know!

…

The island closed in fast, Six made a note to thank Ruby when she got back, those new engines where insanely fast compared to what Six was used to, she'd made it out to the island in about half an hour.

 _They could be dead you know!_

 _Oh will you piss off your not helpful!_

Six landed at the location where the signal had come from. She looked around, it wasn't up for sending any more signals that was for sure. Radio towers tend not to work when their superstructure has been melted, leaving it half the height it was supposed to be.

Six glanced down at the ground, she couldn't see any footprints, but she could see a path, with no other plan she followed it, she could see quite a few covenant bodies but no Human/Faunus, the Battle Rifle user must have survived, the Covenant weren't known for cleaning up after themselves.

Six looked up and down the path, being careful to look around for any trace of human life, outside of the not functioning tower she couldn't see anything, so she found a path and set of.

The slow methodical plodding of the suit was all Six heard as she walked, she was beginning to wonder if she'd gone the wrong way, or if she was just insane when she spotted something, of the path in softer mud was a set of foot prints, they clearly belonged to bare feet because their where no treads and clear toes available.

What interested Six was the two sets where clearly close together and if she was reading them right one of them appeared to be limping. Six looked down, no blood... what was going on...

Confidence in her heart Six set of, charging down the path like crazy until she smashed her way into a clearing and what she saw almost stopped her heart.

Their where two people in the clearing, an older teen male and a slightly younger woman, both appeared to be in their late teens and both where naked and hurt badly. To their credit they where both still fighting the Grimm closing in on them, but it was a losing fight. The Male was the Battle Rifle user and he was a good shot, however his friend wasn't holding up well, Her energy sword seamed powerful however she was slumped over a rock, a huge bruise covered most of her face and it was evident she couldn't run and fight, her missing that arm and all...

 _It's!_

Six didn't even have time to blink, her suit seamed to move faster than she could think, in an instant she'd blasted across the clearing and slashed at the Grimm with the new built in Energy sword built into the suits left arm (Ruby had insisted upon seeing the Energy sword, Six had to agree.) slicing the beast in two, the rest of the pack didn't hesitate, neither did Six. The Gatling gun revved up in a second, its barrage of bullets tearing anything they encountered into paste.

Soon the clearing was devoid of Grimm, their body's dissolving as Six looked at the two behind her.

As Six turned the Battle Rifle user pointed his gun at the suit.

"Who are you?" the user said, hearing the voice Six felt the tears starting to flow from her eyes, it was him. She gulped, struggling to say anything. Slowly she de-powered the suit, allowing it to open and Six to climb out.

The man looked at the Figure in ODST armor.

 _Female, young, ODST Armor, She's UNSC._

"I Said who are you!" He said, he couldn't see the persons face and the way she was just standing there not saying anything was freaking him out.

Wait, hang on she was holding the edge of the suit for support.

"I, I..." The figure spoke, the man jolted, he knew that voice.

She finally gulped, and spoke.

"I am Spartan B312, Code name Noble Six, who are you?" She said, her voice was shaking, that wasn't like Six but then again the way she'd fought in that suit...

"Carter A259, that's Catherine B320." He said, and then Six did something very surprising. The second Kat's number was finished Six had dived from her seat... and threw her arms around the pair. Tears flowing from her eyes as she looked at the pair, not that they could see that through the helmet

she was wearing but they could hear it.

Six, well Six had never regreted breaking an order anymore than that second, they where here, she was with them, she'd saved them.

"I missed you two, So much!" Six gasped, pulling them even tighter.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19 Reunited.

Six spent the next five minutes just hugging her old teammates. Six couldn't say anything, nor could that annoying voice that lived in her head, their was nothing to say; They where here, standing right in front of her, well one was standing, the other was slumped over and...

 _Kats hurt!_

Six Sprang into action, letting go of the two and running back to her suit, reaching into one of the storage compartments and pulling out a health pack. Returning to Kat's slumped form she looked her over.

 _I've only got so much healing potion, what's hurt the worst? Her leg, ankles don't bend like that and her face, right._

"Carter her leg needs bracing at the very least while the bandages do their job, find some sticks or something to brace it and then hold the supports and legs in place while I wrap the leg up properly." Six said instantly, pulling her helmet off so she could see things more clearly, Carter moved quick, although he took a second to look at Six under her helmet before running of to go find what Six had asked for.

 _Probably wanted to know what I looked like, it's not like he ever saw me with my helmet off back on Reach and I've changed quite a bit, so have these two actually..._

Six looked down at Kat, She'd changed quite a bit since Six last saw her. Her hair had gone from a dark black to a light blue, just like Six's hair it was long except hers clearly hadn't been tamed at all in all time she'd been on Remnant. It was tangled and knotted and hung down just long enough to cover her breasts. Outside of the hair though everything looked like business as usual, well at least as far as Six could tell with the limited interaction she'd had with the woman. She looked the same and her figure looked about right, although Six wasn't sure her eyes where blue before...

Carter came back at that point, Six nodded at his selection and waited until Carter had Kat's legs angled properly. It was probably the pain from moving her ankle around that because it was then that Kat regained consciousness enough to look around.

"Urgh... Carter what's going on..." Kat asked, apparently not noticing Six bellow actually warping the bandages.

"Just rest up Kat, you took a heavy hit from that Brute." Carter said, crouching down to be on her eye level and carefully taking her one hand.

"Urgh... I know I can still feel it, but my foot feels better..." Kat Said, Six then took that time to look up and speak (that and the fact that Six had finished warping her foot)

"That'll be the bandages doing that."

Kat's response was about what any sane human would have expected.

"I, wha! Who are you!" Kat cried, trying to scramble backwards.

"Kat, it's me... Noble Six." Six said, looking at Kat, who's eyes sparked with recognition upon hearing the voice.

"Six, it is you... I, I..."

"I'm here Kat, I came here to help..." Six said, tears slowly started to flow from her eyes again, although the smile remained stuck to her face.

"Six?" Carter said, looking at her in concern, he didn't remember his teammate being this... emotional.

"I thought I'd lost everything, I burred you, I have monuments for you back at Beacon, I... I've been finding you're armor, after losing Reach, I, I, I can't believe I've found you, I can't!" Six said, wanting to hug the two again, but deciding against it.

"Losing Reach!" Carter and Kat blurted, Six wanted to slap herself.

 _I shouldn't have told them like that!_

"Yes, The mission, The mission was finished." Six said, looking at Carter and Kat. "Kat, do you know what the mission was after... after..."

"After a Sniper blew my brain's out?" Kat asked, a sarcastic tone in her voice as she spoke it.

"That wasn't..."

 _What I asked._ Six was interrupted as Kat answered.

"I know it wasn't, Carter has told me, you where to deliver the Cortana AI to the Pillar of Autumn." Kat said, Carter looked at Six impatiently.

"Six, what happened?"

"After Emile and I bailed out of the Pelican we where confronted by a Scarab, which you successfully took out... Hang on I know this is another distraction but I have to say this, Carter, Kat, Thank you, without you I couldn't have made it where I did."

"You're welcome Noble, but please, what happened!" Carter said, Six could understand, he had given everything to make sure Six and Emile had a chance, he was never expecting to get an answer, but now he had the chance.

"Both Emile and I made our way on foot successfully to the Dry dock, I gave the Cortana AI to Captain Jacob Keyes and was about to board his pelican when..." Six closed her eyes, she had to say this, but actually talking about it, even if she was sure now that she could find him again... "Emile had elected to stay behind and man a MAC Cannon, however, an Elite got him, ramed him through the back with an energy sword...

Kat and Carter both looked shocked.

"Emile... Emile died just like that?" Carter eventually asked and Six laughed.

"Course not, you really think Emile would let someone kill him and not return the favour, of course not, Emile stabbed that bastard right through the neck with his knife, even in death the dude still managed to get the last laugh..." Six smiled happily at the memory, it was easily the best memory she had of Emile.

"So... what happened after Emile was rendered KIA?" Cater asked so Six continued.

"I was offered a spot on the Pelican, however it was evident that the Autumn wasn't going to make it without some defences, the Covenant fleet was coming and the MAC gun was the only defences, someone needed to man it and well..." Six sighed before gritting her teeth. " ...Noble team had given this mission their all, as far as I know only Jun escaped although I can't prove that; Well, I gave the Autumn that chance."

"I saw the Autumn escape, it jumped away, the ship made it, the AI was on board, they had a Spartan on board, they made it..." Six trailed of, she didn't want to think about the rest of what had happened.

"You didn't get off Reach, did you?" Kat asked; Six nodded.

"No, I didn't have anything left, I just tried to bring as many of the Covenant down as I could and then I woke up in the Emerald forest..." Six explained.

"The Emerald Forest?" Carter asked, clearly confused. Six snorted.

"Oh boy, this is gonna take a while..." Six said, getting ready to explain everything that had happened in the last five months.

 _You're gonna sound insane, you know that right?_

 _Oh hell yeah! Dude this is **Insane** for the love of crap you where their two right? _

…

"So, if I'm understanding this right, you're now a student in a school that trains people to fight those black monsters and they all have natural superpowers?"

"Yeah pretty much." Six said, that was ignoring most of the details but... it wasn't that important.

"Six that's..."

"I'm aware it sound's insane, it's insane to me and I was there! Have you ever been in a food fight where you ended up slammed into a wall and hit by ever single bit of food in the hall? Trust me it's not something you adjust to easily." Six said, smiling brightly despite her old teammates thinking she was insane.

"I, I suppose given the situation..." Carter said.

"The situation that allows two people who I clearly saw die come back to life in new body's? Oh and Carter when we get back to beacon have a shave, the prepubescent beard look is just... bad..." Six said, the fact the hair was now a dark blue probably didn't help, but at least the grey eyes where interesting.

"I'm aware, Kat moans about it a lot when we..." Carter stopped when she saw the look Kat was giving him, Six snorted.

"Carter if you and Kat have chosen to pass some of the lonely nights on the Island by engaging in... those thing's I wont hold it against you." Six said, it wasn't like it was that big a deal, she was friends with Coco and Velvet and had been with them on a three month long mission where the two had gone slightly beyond cuddling, not that she'd tell anyone else about that, walking in on the pair during one of their sessions in a another cave had scared her enough without having to relive it.

"I, I mean we may have..." Carter said, Six was honestly surprised, Carter was normally calm and in control, him being flustered was impressive.

"Oh come on Cater its not that bad, it's not the first time we've done it and it'#s not like I could get pregnant or anything..."

"Erm..." Six said awkwardly.

"What?" Kat asked, looking at the Spartan, who went red suddenly.

"Carter could you... erm, scout the perimeter? I want to talk to Kat about some... 'Feminine issues?'" Six said, trying to remember the word Coco had used while explaining the finer points of what exactly her period was.

Carter looked confused but the look on Six's face convinced him to get up and go. Once Six was sure he was out of earshot she turned to look at Kat.

"Kat, this is incredably awkward, but erm... have you ever had a thing where you, well, bleed form your..."

"From my crotch?" Kat asked, smirking at Six's reaction.

"Yeah lets go with that, have you had that happen to you since you woke up on Remnant?" Six asked, desperately hoping Kat's answer was going to be a 'No'

"Erm, yes about five times why."

 _I now know how Coco and Velvet felt._

…

"Well that makes sense I suppose, still though you're sure I'm not?"

"Yes, apparently it stops when you're pregnant..." The very awkward explanation was thankful interrupted as Carter returned.

"I didn't find anything, although it's getting dark, we should probably head back to camp now." Carter explained, Six nodded.

"That's probably for the best, where have you been living anyway? It's been five months." Six asked as Carter helped Kat to her feet. The Health kits bandages hadn't finished doing their magic so Six was going to support Kat while they walked back. (Out of Six and Carter Six was the only one to have had a decent meal recently, so Carter was driving the mech suit back.)

"We found a decent cave to hide in at night, there is a facility on this island but it's guarded and the sentrys do not like us." Carter explained, Six looked at him.

"Is this facility controlled by the same people who built that radio tower?" Six asked, thinking back to the melted mess.

"As far as we can tell yes, why?"

"Because we might be able to get into it, I'm not sure but we may be having backup coming soon, if I could get a signal through..."

"You might be able to contact them, I get it, who is this backup anyway?" Carter asked, Six shruged.

"Friends from Beacon, trust me we can trust them, they know who I was and it hasn't leaked." Six said, Carter and Kat both looked unsure but ultimately agreed with Six.

"Any idea how fast they can get here?" Carter asked, Six shrugged.

"To be honest I'm not 100% sure they are coming, I mean they probably are, but even then bullheads aren't ultra fast... Maybe a day, at least, if they knew I'd found something I might be able to get them out here..."

"How do we do that?" Kat asked, Six thought for a second.

"I can use my Scroll, but its week on signal her, are their anymore transmitter towers on this island?"

"Yes, we've scouted at least two more towers." Carter explained. Six nodded.

"Okay, can we make it to any of them tomorrow? Given what happened to the other one I don't want to wait encase they get destroyed." Six said, Carter thought about it for a second.

"Yes, your equipment should make dealing with the Covenant forces easier, assuming they go to another tower, they'll probably be more focused on trying to get through that door."

"Door?"

"A Forunner door, theirs one on the island, we haven't been able to get close because it's so heavily guarded, but that's what it looks like..." Six jolted.

" **Theirs Forunner tech here!"** Six cried, her eyes going wide.

"Yes, or at least hats what it looks like, it might not be though..." Carter explained, Six just looked shocked.

"I, I didn't think..."

" Yeah... Six do you have any idea what happened to us?"

"What do you mean?"

"We died, you saw me and Kat die... How are we here?" Six shrugged.

"Carter... to be honest I don't know... But I know someone did it, I passed out and I know that sounds insane!" Six said, seeing the expression on her teammates faces. "But this wasn't a hallucination, it couldn't have been, this person was talking to me, She, I think it was a she... she was kinda hard to see, she knew things, things about the UNSC, things about me, thing's I didn't know, things I only saw for a split second and didn't even think about at the time... I, I asked why she only saved me... And she told me she didn't... Guess I know what she meant now." Six said, smiling.

"If I hadn't seen something similar I'd think you where crazy." Carter said, Six looked at him.

"Well why did you think I was crazy when I started!" Six cried, slightly angry at her two teammates.

"I thought I was crazy and it never occurred to me that it was real, however two people having the same delusion... that doesn't happen, someone saved us..."

"But why?" Kat asked, a sceptical tone still in her voice as she looked at her team mates.

"She never said, she did say their was a reason she gave us these body's though... I wish she'd had time to explain it..." Six said, looking down at the ground.

"Maybe we'll find out?" Kat suggested, Six just shrugged.

"It's possible although I'm not getting my hopes up. Also this is you're cave?" Six asked, seeing as Carter had stopped and the only visible hole in the wall looked to thin to fit through.

"Yes, and with this suit it should be easier to get into." Carter said as he gripped the side of the wall and moved the rock out of the way, Six smiled.

"You hide your camp behind a rock?"

"Well it works, and given I can't even find a pair of trousers..."

"Yes! I noticed that, If I get a signal through I'll ask them to bring some clothes." Six said, trying to avoid thinking about what Carter had been showing of before he got in the suit, she was not a fan, although judging by the few times Kat's eyes had wondered she must have liked it.

 _Each to their own._

Six entered the cave, their wasn't much in their outside of an ammo crate and a few blankets, however their was one interesting thing in the back.

"Carter is that your armor?" Six asked, thinking she may have just found something else to add to her collection.

"Yes I believe so, found it washed up on the coast."

"Nice, add that to the three I've found I only need Jorge's and I'm sorted." Six said happily, Kat and Carter looked surprised.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I've been tripping over Covenant forces and UNSC tech, it's kinda ridiculous actually..." Six said as she found a spot to put Kat down.

"Okay, we should try to get some sleep; tomorrow where taking that tower and your caliing your back up." Carter declaired, resting down on the corner, Six nodded.

"Yeah, and then where finding out what those Covenant pricks want here, I could be wrong but a Forrunner door. I think thats worth investigating."

"Defiantly" Kat added, Carter nodded and told the two to get some sleep, they where gonna need it. Six agreed, although as she fell asleep she could see two figures standing in a corridor, just slightly out of her reach, but this wasn't making her sad, instead she just smiled, yelling out:

"I may not know where you are, but I'll find you! Count on it!" Six yelled, Emile and Jorge both nodded sending a thumbs up at her.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20 Having a Little Talk 

Noble Six awoke early the next day, she looked over Kat and Carter who had fallen asleep on each other's shoulders, Six smiled happily.

 _It's good to know these two are happy, I wonder how it would have been if I'd found someone else before I made it to Beacon_

"You'd be miserable and never have escaped your old mindset, trust me I know, I did my research."

Six jolted and span around, looking at the speaker.

"Guys get up!" Six cried, activating her hammer as she looked at the glowing blue figure. Kat and Carter jolted awake and quickly reached for their weapons as the Figure waved its arms around frantically.

"No wait I'm friendly I promise!" The Figure blurted.

"Can you prove that? 'Cause last time I checked friendlies don't sneak up on you in the night!" Six said, getting ready to move in.

"No I promise, I saved your lives remember, you've talked to me before!"

The gears in Six's head turned for a second before realising who it was, Carters brain also seemed to be functioning along similar paths.

"You're the being that pulled us of Reach?" He asked, training his rifle on the Figure.

"Yes, and you can thank me by not aiming that gun at my face! I don't care if it wouldn't do anything!"

Six hesitated for a second, so did Carter and Kat, both of whom eventually lowered their weapons to look at the figure.

"Okay, so why are you finally talking to us directly?" Six asked, the figure (Whose form was solidifying into something vaguely human and female)

"Because you're finally close enough and emotionally stable enough for me to trust you." The figure said, a mouth finally coming into focus as it moved (rather badly, it wasn't even close to being in sync with what it was saying.)

"Are you saying where untrustworthy?" Kat asked, her head tilting slightly as she looked at the being as her form finally finished.

"Yes." The Figure said, its body was fully formed as it looked them. It had taken a form that reminded Six of Professor Goodwitch if she was naked, granted Six didn't know what that looked like but she could imagine, however, the main difference was the face, it bore a slightly softer look and her hair was significantly longer, hanging down just above her rear. (Which Six could see through because of her translucent body)

"So why are we trustworthy now?" Kat asked, smirking slightly.

"Well for one thing Six isn't a mental/emotional wreck anymore."

"Yeah but we've been here for months, why is Six being here so important?" Carter asked.

"Well she wasn't necessary at first; I was hoping you and Kat would be able to get into my home, unfortunately the erm... unintended side effects of my efforts to save you... Have been blocking the main gate, I've tried talking-to them but they won't listen! And Six is the only one of us with good enough weaponry to deal with them, one battle rifle and energy sword do not compare to a shielded robot suit!"

"Hang on, why would they care? What are you? Are you from that Forunner structure?" Six asked. The figure nodded.

"Yes, I'm the AI in charge of operating the project escape facility."

"The what?" Six asked.

"I can't explain here, for one thing my programming won't let me, I had to pull all kinds of loop holes just to get the project going again, 498 was not happy but whatever your here and as a Human from outside you can get me out of here!" The AI finished, her pupils shrinking slightly.

"You're not making any sense." Six said, The Ai groaned.

"I know, I promise I will explain but I need to explain it to you face to face."

"You are talking to us face to face." Kat commented. The AI scowled.

"I'm aware, I meant my AI chip."

"Why should we?"

"Well for one thing I know where the rest of your friends are and will happily help you find them once I'm out of this place, seriously I've been stuck here for the last 200,000 years, I am cracking up." She said, her face completely breaking down, the newly formed features pixilating and glitching out.

"So to confirm, we help you and in exchange you help us find our friends?" Six asked. The AI nodded.

"Yes, all the yes, just get me out of here! I am losing it! The facility is made out of forty nine thousand two hundred and eighty six individual parts. Did you know that? I do. Do you know how I know? Because I've counted them, four hundred and eighty eight times, I am losing it! I have to get out!" The Ai cried, falling to its knees and adopting a begging position.

Six looked at Carter, who thought for a second before answering.

"I believe you have a deal, however it would be nice to have a name Miss...?"

The Ai sat and looked at Carter, before saying.

"Name... I don't think I have one, do you have any ideas?"

"AI?" Six suggested. Kat scowled at her.

"That's like calling you human, it doesn't mean anything."

"Why do you care?"

"When Cyborg is used like an insult at you you'll know." Kat said, Carter decided to stop this from escalating.

"Okay Miss, you called Noble team to save you correct?"

"Yes, I thought that was obvious..."

"Okay then, for now you're Noble Seven, honoury member, once where off the island you can start to think up a new name for yourself, deal?"

"Seven... I like it and it kinda sounds like Six!"

"Yay, now let's get going." Six said as she and Carter began to move the bolder and uncover the door.

...

"Okay so why are we at this tower and not, you know, on the way to my door?" Seven asked. Six scowled inside her helmet.

"Because I want back up before attempting to take on a hoard of Covenant troops." Six said, gesturing towards the tower. "That tower will let me call said backup, hence making it easier for us to get you out."

"Okay, I would help you out with making that call but you seem to know what you're doing and I've never used these towers."

"Why?" Kat asked looking up at her in a sort of calm surprise.

"Oh well I've never needed to before and I'm scared of the guy who built them?"

"Why who built them?" Carter asked as Six pried the jammer of the tower and began to punch in her signal code.

"Not really sure, some creepy dude called Merlot; I would have tried to make contact with him but he scares me."

"What scares a Forerunner AI like you?" Carter asked. Seven visibly shuddered.

"It's his experiments; he takes the creatures of Grimm (those black and white things you two have been killing while on this island) and... Does things to them, I think he wants to make them stronger."

Six shuddered, the creatures of Grimm already scared her, the last thing she needed was something to make them even worse.

"We have to deal with him as well then before we leave." Six said, Carter looked slightly surprised.

"Why? What exactly are those things?"

"Literally soulless abominations who do nothing but kill humans, their like the Covenant except no one knows where they come from or how they work." Six looked at her team mates. "Look the point is he cannot be allowed to keep making these things, if they get out being a Huntress will be harder and anywhere outside of a kingdom is going to have an even harder time surviving than they normally do; we have to stop this man."

Six finished up her speech as the tower finally found a secure signal. It hummed for a second before eventually the logo of Ruby's scroll came up on the screen.

"Ruby! Ruby is that you?" Six asked. Ruby reacted.

"Six, thank god what were you thinking running of!" A very angry Ruby yelled. Six looked awkwardly at Kat and Carter.

"I thought I heard UNSC weapon fire and had to see if they were from Reach and before you yell at me I was right!" Six said as Ruby went to speak up. "Carter, Kat; allow me to introduce you to Ruby Rose, leady of Team RWBY back at Beacon"

"Team Ruby? Bit egotistical there." Kat commented as Six scowled (Which didn't do much because she had a helmet on)

"Eh heh heh, The name was chosen for me, its technically team R-W-B-Y but everyone gets it wrong... wait, Kat!?" Ruby cried, realising where she'd heard the name before. "Six are they members of Noble team!"

Six beamed inside her helmet.

"Yes they are! Ruby Rose may introduce you to Noble one and Noble two!" Six said, gesturing for the pair to come take the mic.

"Hello, I'm Carter, I led Noble team back on Reach, and you must be the Ruby Six mentioned last night, thank you for helping my team mate." Cater said. Kat then introduced herself.

"I'm Kat, Noble two, same thing here, it's nice to know Six had people looking out for her."

"Your, urgh welcome, erm... I thought you were dead?"

 _Tactful_

"Well Spartans never die, where just missing in action." Carter said simply.

"Oh, well okay... Wait Six!" Ruby cried, suddenly remembering she was angry at the Spartan. "What's been going on?! Where are you?!"

"I'm at the coordinates and it's bad, could you put Professor Ozpin on? Or at least talk to him somehow! It's really bad over here, we've got Covenant and a 'Doctor Merlot' on this island, the man's apparently making mutant Grimm!"

Ruby audibly gasped over the line, leading to Six's surprise when Ozpin spoke almost immediately.

"Doctor Merlot? You're sure?" He asked, a note of anger slipping into his voice.

"Yes according to Intel from Seven..."

"Who?" Yang asked, Six stopped.

"The AI who dragged Noble team of Reach, wait how many of you are listening to this!"

"Team RWBY, Penny and myself are currently the only present people listening to this." Ozpin interjected, Six nodded.

"Okay, that's fine, look I need backup here, the Covenant was bad enough but with this man creating these Grimm as well..."

"I understand, you need help; I'll call in some help, he's in town and he will accompany team RWBY and Penny to come help you, if you all want to help that is, I can't force you to..."

"Of course we're going! Right team!" Ruby cried.

"If Ruby's going I am." Yang said simply.

"I will help all my friends!" Penny said happily.

"And I suppose I better keep an eye on the pair of you." Weiss said.

"And I better keep an eye on you." Blake said, the 'Hey!' from Weiss was cut off by Ozpin.

"They'll be there in a few hours, make sure theirs landing spot, they'll get exact coordinates once they get within Scroll range."

"Rodger Sir, although who will be helping us on this mission?"

"An old friend of mine, I trust him with my life, he'll be there soon, anything I need to know before they head out."

"Nothing I haven't told you, although do have a request..." Six said, going red and looking around awkwardly.

"And what is it?"

"Can you bring some clothes for Kat and Carter? Their kinda... Naked and it's getting distracting."

"Of corse, any rough idea on sizes?" Weiss asked, Six looked them over.

"Grab anything from Neptune for Carter and it should fit..." Sixsaid, taking a closer look at her team mates " ...as for Kat, well she's about your height Weiss and... Crap those are huge!"

"What is it?" Weiss asked, Six went red.

"Erm... Get something of Yang's for Kat's torso, as it turns out Spartan armor compresses more than I thought..."

...

The new airship landed smoothly on the island after three hours of waiting, the door opened and out stepped several figures, five of whom Six recognized, she could safely say she didn't recognize the man leading them though.

"You must be Ozpins friend." Six said, offering hand, he nodded although took several attempts to gasp Six's hand, add that to his wobbly walk and the smell on his breath and Six rather suspected he was drunk.

"Yeah _Hic_ Call me Qrow."


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21 Will you two please shut up!

 _Three hours earlier_

"Okay, you five have agreed to help out Six and her friends, noble as that is I still feel like you'd be better getting some professional help, you'll find him at this address. Miss Xiao Long I believe you're familiar with the establishment." Ozpin said, holding out a card to Yang, who read it and nodded.

"I may have visited it once or twice..." Yang said, thinking back to that fun night she'd had a Junior's club.

"Very good, go there and find him, he's a professional and I guarantee you'll recognize him."

...

"Well that wasn't a very clear description." Weiss said to Yang and Blake in one of the two taxis she'd called for the group.

"I think we can trust Ozpin though, I mean is he ever really wrong? I mean he figured out I was a Faunus." Blake pointed out. Yang shrugged.

"Eh, it doesn't matter, this clubs fun anyway."

Weiss scowled at Yang.

"You don't seem all that bothered that our friend is in serious danger."

"Hey you've seen Six fight, plus she has a robot suit with her, she'll be fine for a few hours; it's not exactly a long flight over." Yang responded, honestly not worried for Six, the girl was tough. Anyway they'd just arrived outside the club.

"Six can handle herself Weiss, although we shouldn't hang about, let's find this Huntsman and get out onto the island." Blake said simply as she stepped out, the other Taxi pulled up and Weiss paid theirs and went to pay the second.

Once that was done the group headed inside. Weiss, Blake and Penny where very confused when Yang entered the building and the bouncer sprinted away from her.

"Yang what did you do?" Blake asked. Yang smiled.

"Nothing last time." Yang said with a simple smile, Ruby smiled slyly.

"And what about the time before that?"

"Oh that time I punched Junior through a window and beet up his staff." Yang snapped back coolly, Weiss looked shocked, Penny looked intrigued and Blake looked bizarrely proud. (Ruby was just giggling)

Yang pushed the door open and looked around the club, the two twin bouncers readied themselves for a fight, but Junior waved them off walking up to Yang saying.

"What do you want this time Blondey?" He said; apparently having resigned himself to having to deal with Yang whenever she visited and just deciding to get it over with quickly.

"Looking for someone."

"I still haven't seen that Torchwich guy."

"I know, not looking for him, where looking for a Huntsman..."

 **"UNCLE QROW!"** Ruby cried, darting past Junior and belting towards someone sitting at the bar, Yang jolted and looked at where Ruby was running, Blake, Weiss and Penny also looked interested; however unlike the half sisters they didn't recognise the man.

"And I've just found them." Yang said simply, pushing Junior out of her way as the group headed towards the man, who seemed to be trying his hardest to get drunk in peace, something that was going to be impossible when the crimson missile that was his Niece hit him. Which it did, the man looked down and looked surprised when he recognized the teen gripping him around the waist.

"Hey _Hic_ Red, what are you doing here?" The man asked. Ruby smiled.

"Ozpin said you'd be in town, he said you'd help us with our mission, something to do with a Merlot guy..." Ruby said. The man looked at her, about to respond when Weiss asked.

"Ruby how do you know this man?" She asked, looking at him as he turned to look at her, he took one look at her white hair and blue eyes and snorted.

"A Schnee? Ruby how do you know her?"

"Oh she's my team mate, as is Blake and... Hey where's Yang?"

"I'm here!" Yang said, sticking her head up from behind the bar where she seemed to be making something.

"Huh, you two are together, good for you, with a Schnee on your team you'll need as much help as you can get."

"Hey!" Weiss cried, looking angry at the man. "Where do you get of insulting my family?"

"Cause I've met them." The man said simply, he then leant in. "Though I don't think I've seen you before..."

Ruby cut in before the two started bickering.

"Weiss this is my Uncle Qrow, he's a teacher at Signal, taught me everything I know." Ruby said simply, Weiss looked him up and down, specifically on the alcohol stains on his outfit.

"That explains so much." She said coldly.

Penny (Who apparently wasn't paying the most attention to the details of this conversation) brushed past Weiss to talk to Qrow.

"My names Penny, it's a pleasure to meet you!" She said happily, bouncing slightly on the last word as she held out her hand. Qrow took a few seconds to focus on her.

"I know you, you a friend of Ruby's kid?" He asked as he disinterestedly shook her hand.

"Oh yes she's been a wonderful friend." Penny responded (Putting in allot more enthusiasm than Qrow had)

"Well good on ya, now why do you want me?" Qrow asked as he drained another shot. "I don't remember telling you I was visiting..."

"You didn't." Ruby said, a hurt look entering her eyes for a few seconds. "Ozpin just said you'd be here, he wants you to help us."

"Oh yeah I remember, you said, well let me sober up and then..."

 _SPLASH!_

"Already on it." Yang said happily, having just thrown a bucket full of water she'd been filling up on Qrow, while also drinking her own drink that she'd been making. The Bar Keeper was impressed by how fast she'd made the drink up (Even if he had been cowering in fear of the Blond because things usually got broken when she showed up)

"Well let's go." Qrow said, pushing himself up and staggering out of the club.

...

"And that's why we took so long!" Ruby finished explaining to Six, Carter, Kat and Seven (Even if the AI wasn't visible presently.)

"That and we had to find something for your friends to wear." Blake added, looking at the two naked teens standing near Six.

"Yes, about that." Kat said, looking at the bundles Yang and Weiss where carrying.

"Yeah we got something, wow Six you left allot out." Yang said, Six looked at her.

"How so? I felt I gave an adequate description given the circumstances." Six retorted.

"Well you never mentioned they were so good looking." Yang said with a smile, Six rolled her eyes.

"Can you just give them the clothes? I'm sick of looking at Carters... well..." Six went red and unintentionally glanced over at Carter as she said that, seeing that thing again. Yang snorted but did drag the two of to get changed, although she stopped when she noticed Kats missing arm.

"You didn't mention that." Blake commented, who'd also noticed the lack of limb.

"I didn't matter." Six said simply, they looked like they wanted to say something, so Carter spoke up.

"Kat's proven herself many times before with only one arm and has had little difficulty." Carter said, no one but Six looked convinced but Yang gave the clothes to Carter and then went to help Kat change (Pulling a bra on one handed is allot harder than it sounds.)

While they were changing Qrow walked over to Six and looked her up and down.

"So you're the alien girl." He said, Six was grateful Penny and Ruby were busy talking and couldn't over hear that.

"If you mean I'm not from Remnant, yes. But I'm still human, trust me the aliens look vastly different to you and me."

"I know I've met them." Qrow said simply. Seeing Six's shocked looked he laughed. "What, think you've seen every single group of them, their all over the place, I found a group while travelling with a friend, he knew more than I did and then Ozpin filled me in." He then looked very seriously at Six.

"Listen my nieces are here and could get hurt, I know their Huntresses and that's what happens, but if they get hurt because of this..."

"They won't, I won't let them." Six said. Qrow wanted to respond but the fire burning in Six's eyes convinced him he didn't need to.

"Good, those things upped the booze I need to sleep count by a few bottles, I don't want that to get any higher today."

"It won't"

"Ta daaaa!" Yang interrupted, leading Carter and Kat out from behind the rock they'd changed behind. Six could safely say that Coco would insist on sorting something out later but for now it would do.

Carter was wearing a plain black T-shirt, one of Neptune's red jackets and a set of cargo trousers, he still had no shoes on but Six figured he would be fine, he'd been fine going bare feet for five months.

Kat was wearing a slightly odder combination; she had one of Yang's Orange work out shirts on top of a black sports bra (it stood out compared witht eh thin material of Yangs shirt.) She also wore one of Weiss Combat Skirts, this was one Six hadn't seen but she could tell it was Weiss' it was white and two lacy to be one of Ruby's.

 _What is it with the people here and colour coordination? Is it a law or something, It's ridiculous!_

 _Say's the girl who exclusively wears purple._

 _Shut it._

Anyway it was new because it was just the skirt, no dress was attached which was good because Kat defiantly wouldn't fit in anything Weiss owned. Despite how slightly odd it looked Kat seemed happy.

"Finally, they were killing me."

"Yeah I get that." Yang said, Six rather suspected they were on about their chests, she then looked down at herself and then across at the other girls with them, all of whom were looking down, except Penny who was walking towards Six (who felt her heart rate speed up as she got closer.)

It slowed down considerably when she slapped Six across the face.

"Argh!"

"Don't you do that again!" Penny said, glaring at Six. "Friends shouldn't make friends worry about each other!" Penny said, trailing off. Six looked at the hurt in her eyes and nodded.

"I understand, but I had to help them, I couldn't leave them..." Six said. She knew she'd made the right decision (evidence suggested Kat might not have made it if she hadn't shown up when she did) but seeing Penny's hurt face... she couldn't help but feel a little bad.

 _I could have explained it better than I did._

 _Yeah I think your right about that._

"I understand that, however you should have explained, I would have gone with you if you just explained the situation with me."

"You would have?"Six asked, her heart rate speeding up slightly.

"Of course I would have." Penny said. Six smiled.

"Then I'm sorry I didn't explain. I know it was wrong."

"Just make sure it doesn't happen again, I don't like worrying about my friends."

"Yay! friendship!" Qrow called sarcastically, looking at the two girls, who jolted and realised everyone was waiting for them.

Going red the two girls ran over to the group, which then headed off towards the door.

...

"So why are we here dealing with the aliens instead of the mutant Grimm?"Yang asked, Six scowled.

"Because we said we'd help we'd help Seven and it's much easier to break into somewhere with an AI on your side. Also Carter the doors just ahead right?" Six called to Carter and Kat, who where leading the group across the island.

"Yes, it should just be down here... oh, this is weird..." Carter trailed of, six ran up to see what was up, and saw it pretty quickly.

"Why's their camp abandoned?" Six asked, looking down at clearing around the huge metal door. Nothing was there, nothing could be seen, the only reason Six knew the Covenant forces had been there in the first place was the massive footprints in the ground that they'd left.

"No idea, you think it's a trap?" Carter asked to Kat, who shook her head.

"No they worship the Forerunners like gods, they wouldn't leave a temple like this alone without good reason, a simple trap wouldn't be enough, we could defile it too easily."

"Weren't they attacking you at the tower?" Six asked. Kat nodded.

"Yes but that was only some of them, something bad must have happened for them to have run of like this."

"Think it came from behind the doors?" Carter said. Once again Kat shook her head.

"No they haven't moved in ages."

"Should we go take a look?" Ruby asked, having moved in closer and joining in the conversation, Carter looked surprised at how eager Ruby was, Six worked out what it was, he hadn't seen what Ruby was capable of, he was just looking at a fifteen year old girl, not the skilled fighter Six knew she was, electing to stop the argument by saying:

"I think Ruby's right" And walking out into the clearing, when she didn't get mobbed from every side she beckoned for everyone else to come out.

"It's safe, wherever they are its not here." Six said as the group joined her in the clearing.

"So this is the alien door thingy, any idea how to open it?" Qrow asked, the three Spartans shook their heads.

"Not a clue, Seven you got any ideas?" Six called, Seven's Avatar appeared in front of them, calling all the Remnant natives to jump, except Qrow who seemed to be eyeing her up.

"Yeah, say please, oh and hello it's nice to meet you all properly, except you, Six never saw you..." She said, looking over at Qrow.

"Just want to check I'm not the only one who can see the naked glowing person?" Yang said, looking around. "Everyone else sees a glowing person?"

"Yeah, I see her, Six care to tell us anything?" Weiss commented, looking at Seven who blushed slightly.

"Yeah, this is Seven, she's an AI and she's the reason I'm on Remnant in the first place." Six explained quickly, Seven nodded and then bowed at the group.

"I am very happy to meet you... Now get the door open and let me out! I'm going nuts in here! 498 is not helping matters... **I know shut up!"** Seven suddenly screamed at nothing.

"Seven..."

"I'm in two places, 498 is next to my physical chip and you're out here, I'm having both conversations at once and it's confusing. It shouldn't be, I'm an AI thousands of years ahead of your most advanced technologies, even your ginger friend here is eons behind me, although you're lovely I assure you." Everyone except Ruby, Six and Qrow looked confused at Penny, however at that point the door opened the slow creaking and groaning echoing around as the doors moved for the first time in thousands of years.

Floating behind the door in the corridor was a metal sphere, less than a foot across with a glowing yellow eye in its centre.

"Ah, you must be the reclaimers, _Urgh_ 'Seven' has been talking about, well if she wants to abandon protocol we've had for thousands of years that's no skin of my back, not that I have one..." The sphere said, its eye glowing slightly with every word it spoke as it boardly looked at the two, talking in an accent the Remnant natives couldn't place but the Spartans recognised as British.

"I take it your 498?" Carter asked, looking at the thing in curiosity.

"Yes I am; I know your names... 'Seven' insisted on telling me, multiple times, well chop, chop, I'm done trying to convince her to see sense, if she wants to leave this strong hold and go out into the dangerous world outside then that's her lot."

"Wait 'Stronghold'? What is this place?" Weiss asked as the nine headed inside the building.

"I swear Seven I'm going to delete your code! Has she told you three anything?" The sphere asked towards the three Spartans.

"She's how we got to Remnant after what happened on Reach?" Six asked. The sphere nodded.

"Yes, although she broke all sorts of protocols to do it. Seeing as she elected to not tell you anything I guess I should do it. Welcome to the headquarters of 'Project Ostium' This facility was made by the Forerunners to try and escape the Flood Parasite, unfortunately the power consumption made it unusable, Seven was only just able to get use out of the door because of that Reclaimer above us, she looked through and saw what was about to happen to your team, and breaking every single rule we were given elected to break protocol and use the door to bring you over."

"So Seven drew power from Merlot and saved us." Six muttered, the events finally making sense to her.

"Yes, although why she bothered I don't know, Oh well, I suppose you'd like to see her."

"Yes we would. We need her to Find Jorge and Emile"

"Well she'll probably be able to do that, she's just..." 498 started to say, however he was interrupted, the walls suddenly caved in, an explosion of smoke billowed in and something horrifying met the group's eyes. A Brute stood before them, although the Spartans had never seen a Brute like it before, the creature was huge, bigger than normal; it had green spikes of dust jutting out from it in odd places, a sick tattoo snaking up its body; the eyes had been stripped of all intelligence, leaving nothing but pure rage, its tangled mess of hair was longer, tangled up in itself and the hair on its heads growing in deformed dreadlocks that hand down to its chest, the armor was burnt and blackened, stabbing out at odd angles, it was truly monstrous and looking right at them.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22 Wasn't expecting that

"Get back!" Six yelled as she started retreating, everyone followed her, the gunners in the group (Ruby and her Uncle) kept the thing distracted with gunfire as the group legged it back along the corridor; despite the pairs best efforts the thing wasn't hurt, it was ignoring its multiple wounds and continuing its charge.

"That green dust makes things explode!" Weiss yelled, looking at the Brute as it moved in closer, beginning to charge at the group. "Why hasn't it blown up yet?"

"You think it can control it!?" Kat yelled, holding out at the back of the group (She had no shield or Aura and with only one arm she'd elected to stay out of fights where ever possible.)

"I don't think so..." Weiss said as the mutated Brute reached for its hammer, slamming it down on the group, Six was not ready for the resulting impact.

Six used a Gravity hammer also, however hers didn't explode when it hit the ground... this one did, and it was a sizeable explosion.

"Guys what's... OH MY GOD!" Seven yelled, emerging into the corridor and looking in shock at what she could see.

"Seven lead us to you, I vote we grab you and get out!" Six yelled and the Brute readied another smash.

"On it!" Seven yelled as she ran of down the corridor, the group folled her, 498 seamed board if anything.

"I told her this would bloody happen, it was a mistake to use the gate, but know! Let's not do the smart thing! Let's use the thing we were warned never to use, that makes sense!"

"If they didn't want me to use it they shouldn't have given me control over it!" Seven yelled back, approaching a final door. "Guys get in here, I have an idea!" She yelled, ushering them in. Then she didn't shut the door.

"Seven!" Carter yelled, looking at her.

"I got this." She said, her arm raised as she watched the creature approach.

"You sure!" Six yelled.

"Yes!" Seven yelled, bringing her arm down just as the Brute was under the door, which came crashing down on top of it.

"Good plan, now let's..." Qrow said, about to suggest they moved out and got Seven quickly, unfortunately that plan hit a small snag, a small snag called the Brute wasn't dead yet.

It slammed its hands into the ground, forcing the door back up as it pulled itself out and drove its fist towards Qrow, who demonstrated surprising amount of grace by dodging it.

"Kids run!" Qrow yelled.

"But!" Ruby and yang yelled in response.

"Look I can distract it, get the AI and get out of here, I'll join you latter!" He yelled, he then took a second to shoot Six a look, a look Six read clearly as 'Keep them safe'

Six nodded and gestured to seven who nodded, setting off again, the half sisters looked back at their Uncle, who flashed them a smile and leaped at the thing, reluctantly they followed the group back along the corridor.

"What was that thing?" Weiss yelled, looking at Six and the Spartans, Six responded.

"No idea I've never seen a Brute like that before! You two?" Six asked, looking at her team amtes, who shook their head.

"Never seen that before!" Kat cried.

"We've been observing the Covenant forces, they didn't have anything like that at their camp." Carter explained. Six looked at Seven.

"Did you do that?" Six asked, the AI shook her head.

"No I didn't even want to bring them over, doing a complete re-jig like that takes tiem and power, it was enough for me to restore your bodies! Had to burn through a ton of unnecessary stuff to get the material to rebuild you lot!"

"What do you mean!?" Kat yelled back.

"I mean I sacrificed your augmentations so you didn't have a bullet hole in your head!" Seven yelled back at Kat, before turning to Six and Carter in turn and explain.

"Same for your energy sword wound and your burnt corpse!"

"Okay so why are we younger?" Six asked. Blake looked at Six in shock.

"You're asking about that now?!"

Six shrugged in response. (An impressive feet to do so while running)

"Well if we die I'm never going to get another chance!"

"I made you younger so you could have time to train and get used to the world again, with the exception of one of you who I had to pull out slightly before his dealt, I got him just fine, but I had to do major work on you four and it took allot of effort!"

"What about Jun!?" Carter yelled, when Seven looked blank Six yelled back.

"The sniper! You must have seen him in my PTSD dreams!"

"Oh him!" Seven said as recognition flashed in her eyes. "No sorry, the protocols only allowed me to pull dyeing inhabitants over and well, he wasn't dyeing, he's still fighting actually."

The Spartans where happy to hear that, however before they could ask more questions they arrived in what appeared to be a control room of some kind.

"Welcome to gate control." 498 said, floating into the room, the door slamming shut behind them.

"Okay, Seven where's your chip?" Six asked, looking around for it, there was nothing obvious but then again she was an alien AI, she wasn't obligated to do things the same way the UNSC did.

"Over here." She said pointing, Six ran forward and pulled the chip out, it looked compatible, to find out Six slotted the AI into the back of her ODST helmet, where she flickered before saying.

"Okay I'm in and wow!" Seven said. "Six you never looked at the data stored on this helmet did you."

"No I didn't. Why should I?" Six asked in confusion, to answer her question a small screen appeared showing a Spartan suit, specifically the back of a Spartan suit, the lower back of a Spartan suit, a female Spartan suit.

Six went red inside the helmet.

"The dude knew what he liked, he's got hundreds of these... you wanna see?" Seven asked, while she didn't have a face at the moment Six could see her smirking.

"No, but keep them for later." Six muttered. Seven snickered and then Six looked around.

"Okay now what?" Six asked, they were in a room with no way out without running the risk of encountering a Brute hybrid, assuming that was the only thing they had to worry about.

"Okay we've got the AI, So we should try to deal with Merlot and his mutant Grimm." Weiss said, Ruby then spoke up.

"But what about Uncle Qrow! he's fighting that monster on his own, we have to do something!" She cried, looking around at the others, who nodded.

"Yeah but what? I mean he wanted to fight it on his own." Blake pointed out, Six thought for a second before answering.

"Yes, but we've finished the mission now, so... let's go help him!"

The group nodded, ran out the door... and immediately regretted it.

A mixture of Grimm and Covenant forces where outside, they all looked like the Brute; green dust spikes snaking out of them, the group composed mostly of Creeps and Grunts; who began running at the group, Ruby took a shot at one of the Creep; which was a good thing because this tiemt eh creature did explode.

Quite badly actually, it blew up the tunnel and caved the ceiling down, 498 cried out.

"No, my facility!"

Six couldn't help but feel bad for the sphere, it sounded so heartbroken over having its place damaged, so she made sure to grab him out of the air and drag him back with them.

"What do we do!" Penny cried as the group darted back into the room as the forces outside started slamming into the wall.

"We need to get out, 498 is there any way of getting out of here without using the door?" Six asked, looking at the sphere in her hands, when it didn't say anything she shook it.

"Hey come on! Their after us, if we go they'll follow us and leave your facility alone, so come on how do we get out!?"

The sphere was motionless for a second, before it floated up and turned on a small laser pointer and indicated a panel on the wall.

"That panel leads to the maintenance ducts, if you head in their you should be able to find a way out, good let's get in..." Carter said as the door was flung across the room, the flash of light indicating one of the creeps must have bombed it.

"Move it!" Six yelled as she ran over to the wall panel, pulling the panel of and flinging it across the room, leading Kat in first and everyone else followed in, Ruby taking a pot shot at a nearby Grunt, which then blew up and starting the cave in on the control room.

The good thing was the wall caved in and left the group unable to get back out the way they came, but it also meant the group couldn't get out, in the dark, Six could only see because of her helmet filters, the rest of them...

"Can anyone else see anything?" Six asked, most of them shook their heads, with the exception of Penny and Blake.

"I can see fine friend Six."

"I can see."

"Okay Penny I get." Six said, then she looked at Blake. "But how can you see so well?"

"Erm..."

"You can trust her Blake." Ruby said. Yang backed her sister up.

"Yeah, it's Six, you saw how he dealt with Cardin right?"

"And the others?"

"Blake just tell them before I do it for you." Weiss said simply.

"Okay fine, I'm a Faunus okay." Six nodded.

"Okay, lets..."

"What's a Faunus?" Kat asked so Blake explained.

"I'm part animal, I have cat ears and enhanced senses."

"That sounds helpful." Carter commented, Blake responded.

"Eh, it's helpful but humanity's distrust and sometimes violent reaction to us is... well."

"I get it." Carter said. "Although I don't see it; Faunus sound incredibly helpful, wouldn't you want them on your side in a fight?"

"Look I don't know, shouldn't we deal with out actual problem?" Blake asked, everyone agreed and the seven humans (as far as Six knew) one android and floating sphere set out.

The maintenance ducts where long and creepy, with everyone unable to see anything in front of them having a hand on the other, Six noticed Yang putting a hand on Blake's butt so she had some idea where to go (the look on the two's faces told Six allot about how the two felt about this) with Weiss holding onto Yang and a similar set up to the rest of them, although with less hands on butts.

They group moved through until eventually they found a vent that lead back into the main corridors, Six kicked the vent out and looked around.

"Okay where clear." Six said as she dropped down, Carter followed, then caught Kat in a bridal position, Six noted the two smile at each other as Carter walked out of the way to let the others drop. (Penny left a very significant dent in the floor as she landed.)

The group walked until the entered the corridor they'd started in, a massive hole in the wall, Six looked around noticing sword slashes and explosions splattering the walls, which weren't there before.

"Guys; Where they there before?" Six asked pointing to the marks.

"No, but those where left by Uncle Qrows sword!" Ruby cried. "I'd recognise them anywhere!"

"Of course you would." Weiss muttered.

"It's helpful, because now we Know Qrows come back this way, come on lets go." Six said diving through the hole in the wall, the others followed her as they ran. Quickly the entered a drastically different style of corridor, no longer unpainted Forerunner metal they entered a white metal corridor, red pipes bolted to the walls, it looked more human made now, the group where running until they reached an LCD screen, which flared to life revealing a old man.

He had grey hair, a bushy moustache...this looked normal enough; however the glowing right eye and metal arm through Six of a bit. Weiss however gasped before crying out.

"Doctor Merlot?"

Six's eyes lit up as she looked at the man.

 _So this is who we've been looking for!_

The man laughed and smiled at the group.

"Why you know my name, I'm honoured young miss. Yes I am Doctor Merlot; it's a pleasure to welcome you to Merlot industries and I am happy that you agreed to help test my latest experiments."

"Hey! We didn't agree to anything!" Yang yelled. Merlot laughed.

"Well I suppose so, although you're being very helpful anyway, these new creatures are proving quite interesting."

"Well whooptey do, don't suppose you feel like giving us a tour? Or telling us where Qrow went?" Blake asked.

"Well of course I would be delighted, follow my voice children, keep up now." He said as the display turned off and turned on again on a different screen down the hall. The group looked at each other for a second before following.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23 The Tour

"Welcome to Merlot Industries, Vale's top genetics and robotics lab." Merlot said as the group walked down the hall, the members looked around nervously. They were probably not safe in here, it was the headquarters of the man who's seen a Brute and concluded it needed making more dangerous.

"Really? Because I don't think this island is a part of Vale." Weiss said. Six suspected she had the geology of every kingdom engrained into her brain.

"Ah, nice to know that the Schnee's are as sharp as ever. Yes while we may not be in Vale I consider myself a part of Vale and that's where I made my start." Merlot said, looking wistfully of into the stars, as if his eyes had just been filled with visions of fond memories.

"Okay, so how come I've never heard of you?" Six asked, looking up at the screen.

"Ah well some people didn't like the experiments I wanted to perform, they said it was too risky to experiment on Grimm." Merlot said as he brought his attention back to them.

"And what where these experiments?" Carter asked, although given what they'd just seen everyone could guess pretty easily.

"Well I was trying to get the Grimm under my control, I suspected that if infused them with the right material I could get them on our side, imagine the possibilities!"

Six thought about them for a second, getting the Grimm under control seemed perfectly reasonable to her... although...

"So, did it work?" Six asked, suspecting she knew the answer.

"Well no, I was able to Change the Grimm's physiology, unfortunately adapting a brain that would listen to me proved too much for most of them, one survived though, my masterpiece and as of yesterday its only going to get better!"

"Why what happened yesterday?" Yang asked.

"Well I finally found a gas that worked on those alien fellows that where camping jsut outside my door, fascinating creatures... it would have been helpful to know those small ones needed thoses masks; but no matter I didn't lose to many!" He said with an almost sick chuckle. Six was confused, killing Covenant usually mad her like someone more, but this man...

 _Wait I'm feeling bad over Covenant deaths?_

 _Well Grunts are kinda funny._

 _What does that matter? They still tried to kill all of humanity!_

 _Well... I don't know... maybe it's the fact he enjoyed it despite the fact the Covenant haven't done anything here? Thus he just enjoyed killing them?_

Six wasn't sure what to make of that, although her read of Merlot as dangerous was lodged more firmly into her brain.

 _If he managed to get his hands on a Hunter..._

Six pushed those dark thoughts out of her head, they weren't helping and it wasn't like Hunters where invincible, then she glanced over at Kat and realised she could be in danger.

 _Nice to know you respect her that much._

 _She's missing an arm and has no shields, she's in danger!_

 _Then put her in the robot suit!_

 _I can't do that because you need two hands to drive it, why do you think I put Carter in the suit!?_

 _Because you trust him with it more than her._

 _I? What!? What are you on about! I trust both of them, Kat just physically can't use the thing! That's not distrusting her, that's fact!_

 _Okay geese don't rip my head off!_

 _You are my head!_

"Young lady are you paying attention?" Merlot asked, looking at Six, who looked up at him, scowling.

"No, no I'm not."

"Well I would say that's quite rude!"

"I'd say I was busy." Six retorted, not raising her voice, just looking around, more sword slashes down a corridor, Six started to head off but the door slammed shut as soon as she got through it.

"Hey what's going on!" Six yelled, turning around and slamming on the door. (With her fists at first before she remembered she had a Gravity Hammer on her back, which didn't do anything.)

"I'm sorry young lady but if you're going to abandon my tour you shouldn't be on it, come on my friends lets continue!" He said, leading the group of. Six swore, she couldn't get through that door, it was too thick and the hammer was the strongest thing she had. So she elected to follow her original plan, head of down the path and try to find Qrow.

As Six walked she wondered how intense the fight Qrow had been having was, the slashes where everywhere and judging by the scorch marks on the wall the Brute had done allot of smashing.

Six ran off down the corridor, no use hanging around; however, as she ran she noticed something.

She was lonely.

This was odd to the Spartan, she was a lone Wolf, it got her in trouble allot back in UNSC space, even now on Remnant she spent most of her time alone in her room, wait Penny had been their recently and it was defiantly better to have her around...

 _Am I lonely?_

 _After a few seconds? I don't think so. Anyway you've got Seven in your helmet, you've clearly got someone._

 _Then what?_

 _Well, maybe... we can't help them, can we..._

Six knew that was it, Six had vowed to keep everyone safe and now she couldn't. After months of thinking her friends where dead she'd found them again and the others were out there. She could find them; she was going to help them the same way RWBY, JNPR and CFVY had helped her.

 _But I'm not going to be able to help them if I'm not with them am I?_

 _We'll find them._

 _Wow you're being supportive, this is new._

 _Don't get used to it._

 _I won't._

"It'll be okay Six." Six looked up at Seven in the top of her visor.

"Yeah, it will be." Six said through gritted teeth, barrelling around the corner... and got hit by a flying Brute.

This was not a good thing, Six may have a shield with her ODST armor but they weren't designed to protect you from being crushed, they stopped bullets and plasma, not gravity and heavy things.

The Brute crushed her, Six gasped out in agony as the weight hit her, the Green spikes digging into her skin, penetration the fabric of her armor.

Luckily for the Spartan the brute was kicked of her before it could finish crushing her, unfortunately the kicker landed on her, granted Qrow jumped of quickly and looked down in horror.

"Six what are you doing here!? Where everyone else!?"

Six could barely speak, just croaking out.

"Got separated... Was trying to find a way back..."

"Hold on I'll finish this quickly." Qrow said, the Sword he had been using converting into what was unmistakably a Scythe. Six watched in awe, so did Seven, although Six could only tell because a small model appeared on her screen facing the fight.

Six had to admit Qrow was good, very good, he moved like Ruby did, well he did teach her; the way he moved... it was incredible, the Brute just kept missing, nothing ever seamed to make contact, Qrow just kept on dodging; eventually the Brute swung its hammer to near a pipe and the explosion sent Qrow flying, crashing down next to Six.

"Argh!" he cried, Six looked and realised his Arua must have broken because he had a lump of shrapnel stuck in his guts.

"Qrow _Ack!_ " Six chocked out. He looked at her and gritted his teeth. Forcing himself up to his feet he looked at the Brute, which seamed enraged that its target was still standing.

It ran at Qrow, who smiled before jumping and...

 _Okay since when can people turn into birds?_

Qrow... was a crow. Why Six had no idea, he was just a bird, the Brute was confused, looking around it saw Six and raised its hammer, preparing to end the Spartan, who tried to move but her shattered ribs wouldn't let her.

 _Come on, you're a Spartan, get up!_

 _I'm trying!_

Six really was but her body just wouldn't let her, like her last stand on Reach she was spent and outgunned and...

 _SLIIIIIIICCCEEE!_

Qrow's scythe moved faster than Six had ever thought possible, cutting the beast in half; it forze for a second, as if it wasn't answer it was dead, but it was and soon gravity took effect, the thing fell to the ground, the green spike augments disintegrating, while the rest... Well brutes never looked good at the best of times and now this one was missing part of its corpse, so it was left both dead and with tones of exposed muscles and broken bones.

"Urgh, man that's ugly." Seven commented, Six tried to tell her to shut up, but she just coughed again and Qrow ran over to her.

"Rest up kid, you took a nasty hit there." He said, comforting the girl who looked up at him, she tried to say something as he reached out and pulled her helmet off.

For a second he looked surprised as he saw Six's face, he muttered.

"Only just older than Ruby..." Qrow said Before he reached for the straps on her chest plate. To six's great relief he didn't dither or worry about stripping a young girl, not because that was a bad trait to have but because she was in massive pain and needed medical help now, she could take uncomfortable moments if it meant she didn't die.

He looked at her body, there wasn't a huge amount he could do about her ribs, however that hole which had previously had a green dust spike lodged in it was bleeding out and he could stop that. He reached down for his cape, and then gripped it before tearing a strip of. Six noted it clearly wasn't the first one taken from this cape, how many people had he had to patch up?

Soon six was bandaged and she stood up, it hurt, her ribs where basically shot and it was agony,. However according to Seven nothing was punctured she'd be fine so long as she didn't move to quickly, or to quote her: 'Stay the fuck out of fights and you won't rupture anything and bleed out in a slow agonizing death'

"Are you okay?" Qrow asked as he looked down at her; Six nodded, then thought about it and tried to shrug, it hurt so it was only a small one but it got the point across.

"Yeah. Well no actually this is about the last thing I should be doing, however I don't exactly have a hospital here and I think I should be grateful I'm not dead, just my luck I'd run into you then isn't it?" Six looked at Qrow, who wasn't making eye contact.

"It was just luck right?" Six asked, her head tilted at an angle.

 _Qrow didn't want to hurt me right?_

Qrow sighed, before pulling his hip flask out and taking a swig before saying.

"Your right its luck, but its mine, my Semblance, it generates bad luck while I'm fighting; it's why i fight alone, it's safer that way."

Six nodded, effect Semblances where rare according to what she'd read but not impossible, hang on...

"I thought your semblance was to turn into a bird?" Six said, remembering what she'd just seen.

"No thats just something else I can do... Look don't tell anyone okay, its kinda secret, I didn't want to..."

Six put her hand up to his mouth and smiled.

"It's okay I won't tell, everyone wants to hide something right?"

Qrow looked at her before smiling.

"You're a good kid Six, not as good as me when I was your age but that's a high mark to reach."

Six snorted, something she immediately regretted as her ribs cried out in pain.

"Ow..."

"Ah welcome back to the tour Miss Six, I must say it's lovely to see you again, and Qrow how nice, how have you been, it's been a long time since I saw you in my classroom?" Merlot said, his face appearing on a screen they hadn't noticed, Qrow scowled at the face on the screen.

"Fine, I'd feel allot better if I knew where my nieces where." He said scowling. Merlot laughed.

"Well my dear Qrow it's nice to know you're as vague as ever; you really haven't changed; but don't worry, your nieces are just around this corner, I've got a surprise for you and I really think you'll like it." He said with a sick grin on his face.

Qrow and Six looked at each other and sped up as much as they could given Six's ribs.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24 As if these things weren't dangerous enough already.

Qrow overtook Six and ran on ahead, Six wasn't surprised, she was defiantly slowing him down. Her ribs were crying out in pain as she moved, so Qrow took off.

He felt bad about leaving Six behind; but he didn't really have a choice, his semblance had gotten her hurt once and she didn't need to suffer under it again.

So he ran, bolting off and jumping into the fight, his niece's and her friends and looked around, they seemed to have the situation under control.

"Well I must say you five have impressed me greatly, Oh and Qrow how nice it is to see you, dealt with my pet have you? Shame I liked that one, it had real potential; however I suppose if it couldn't keep up..."

"It really couldn't." Qrow said bluntly.

Merlot let out a chuckle.

"Well that's sad; however I have a bit more to show you, my Lusus Naturae I guess you could say." Merlot said chuckling as he taped on some buttons.

The massive steel doors at the end of the corridor opened up, and what crawled out...

The thing was massive.

It smoked slightly, as if whatever had been done with it had only just finished; it walked out on its six legs.

The thing was Death Stalker, but it also wasn't. The thing was huge, bigger than the one Team RWBY had seen in the emerald forest; it was glowing green as dust crystals stuck out of every piece of its body, more spikes and angles appeared on its rigged back, that alone would be terrifying, however it had some more enhancements that made the beast nightmare inducing.

The beast had four scaly mandibles growing out of its bottom jaw, spiky hands grey out of its arms just before its massive pincers. Its eyes weren't glowing yellow spheres, they where slit eyes with an inelegance behind them.

"Do you like it?" Merlot asked, looking down fondly on his creation. "I must say it's immensely fun to see what I could get out of those creatures, this beauty is currently my only surviving hybrid, and I think its hungry, you don't mind helping me feed her do you?"

The group looked up at the beast as it charged.

...

Six kept moving forward, a slow trudge.

"Six are you sure you should be doing this?" Seven asked nervously. Six nodded.

"Yes, I have to help."

"You're not going to be very helpful if you puncture a lung and die." Seven pointed out. Six scowled, she was right but that wasn't important.

"I can't let them fight alone."

"But there not alone. There not even close to being alone, they've got a professional huntsman with them and even without him, theirs five of them; and 498 can be useful in a fight."

"Somehow the metal sphere isn't giving me much hope, I'll keep going if that's okay." Six said, getting the feeling the British twit wasn't going to0 be very helpful.

"The dude has a high power laser built into his face." Seven said. Six gasped.

"Seriously?"

"Yes, so give him some credit; hell give them some credit, you know what they can do. So have some faith in them to do it."

"But..." Six started.

"Oh for fucks sake!" Seven cried. Interrupting Six and screaming. "Six you're worried! I get it! Anyone would be! But for the love of crap you can't help everyone all the time! So please, for Fucks sake! Trust them! They won't die if you're not there! And even if you where that's no guarantee of their safety, or do I need to remind you that you couldn't save them the first time!"

Six stopped, her heart sped up (something she didn't need with her injured ribs) Tears started flowing.

"Six! Oh my god I'm sorry I didn't mean..."

"But your right." Six said, pulling her helmet off so she could wipe her eyes. "I couldn't do anything then and I can't do anything now!"

"Six..."

"I don't want to lose them again, I can't lose them again... I can't! But I can't do anything either! My stupid ribs! I can't..."

"I know this must hurt for you... but Six, you're not helpless." Seven said. Six snorted and looked up at her.

"I appreciate it, I really do. But you're wrong, I can't fight, I can't even run, what can I do? How can I help?" Six choked out before the tears got worse again.

Seven tried to think of an answer, but she didn't have one. Six slumped down against the wall, it hurt but she was numb to the pain now, it wasn't like her situation could get worse was it?

"Six... I'm sorry."

"I know, but what could you have done? What could they have done, they lived as long as they did, but ultimately their luck ran out... or, wait, they chose, most of them chose to go." Six said, realising something, she didn't know what her friends could do, they had chosen. Well, She supposed kat hadn't but if she'd had the choice...

Seven let out a small chuckle.

"Well that's one way of looking at it, although I still wish I could have done better, I should have made your body better for one thing."

"What do you mean? The body works fine, I've just been treating it like shit."

Seven just shook her head.

"If the body was fine you'd have a semblance." Seven said simple. Six laughed.

"I never had one in the first place, why should I have one?"

"Well for one thing you're built with the potential to have one."

Six looked at the AI (Who was being projected outside of the small helmet)

"What did you do when you brought us over?" Six asked, looking down at the AI.

"Project Ostium was designed as a way out of an entire dimension, the Forerunners realised they might not be suitable to living in a dimension with different physics so the Gate has the potential to alter the people who travel through it, over seeing that procedures my responsibility actually. Anyway, I tried to make you into Remnant worthy people, you have the ability, I've studied it from a distance for years, you should be able to produce one."

"Well I can't." Six said bluntly, she'd been told she couldn't... wait, told she couldn't? Was that right? Had she ever... she'd said it, but those weren't Locasters words...

...Flashback...

" _Strange you're not making one, that's odd..."_

" _What do you mean?"_

" _Well, you should be able to make an Aura, almost every human can, but for some reason yours isn't manifesting."_

" _Guess I can't do it then." Six said shrugging._

" _I suppose... but there's nothing about you that..."_

" _Its fine ,I'll do without."_

...Flashback end...

"I can do it...?" Six said, shock in her voice.

"Yes, in theory anyway; but I can't be sure...what are you doing?" Seven asked as Six grabbed her helmet, pulling it over her head and forcing herself to her feet.

"I'm getting up... and I'm going to help!" Six declared, wincing against the wall as her chest started to hurt, but this wasn't a bad thing, she was getting back up and not dyeing.

"Six your ribs were crushed by a half a ton monster, getting up is a bad idea." Seven said, looking worriedly at the Spartan, who was starting to form a mad grin.

"Auras can heal almost any injury, especially their first burst, I'll be fine!" Six cried, smiling because she'd worked something out.

"But... you don't know if you even have one! Having the potential and actually having one are two very different things!"

"But I do!" Six laughed, her laugh getting louder as she forced herself to her feet.

"I wha? How? What!?" Seven cried, looking at Six as she staggered for a few seconds, taking deep breaths, deep breaths that weren't hurting her.

"Think about it! I got crushed by half a tone of brick shit house! I should have been crushed, but I wasn't, I live through it! I'm okay, I have an Aura, I can help!" Six smiled, sprinting off, Seven looked at her; she was clearly right but.

"How do you know their still alive? They could be dead by this point!"

"No their not!" Six yelled as she rounded a corner at top speed, her stride getting ever so slightly longer with every step.

"How do you know!?" Seven yelled, a smile on her face as Six ran.

"Because it's them! They won't die on me! I might not be able to help but they don't need it! They've got their backs, and so have I!" Six yelled, smashing her way through the doors and leaping down into the fight, She saw the enhanced Death Stalker, she saw her friends fighting it, all of them. Even Kat, no shield, no right arm, was still fighting, slashing through robots and Grimm with her sword. Six grinned as she leapt into the fight.

The Death Stalker was bringing its tail down when it was smashed out of the way, enraged the beast looked up to see what had hit it, all it got was a blinding purple light from its attacker as Six crashed to the ground, standing up and wringing her hand, she'd just punched a Death Stalker's sting. She stood up and she cracked her knuckles, beaming under her helmet... Who's visor seemed to have changed for no reason what...?

Six looked down, and almost cried out when she recognised what was happening, her armor was back.

Not the ODST set, her armor, her Mjolnir was back on her body and it fit, as she stood up she realised she was taller; over a foot taller. She looked around, she was back as she once was, towering over everyone; a familiar speed back in her movements and reactions.

"A semblance..."Seven muttered, having no other explination for what had happed, plus it made sense, semblances where unique to their user and her armor was defiantly unique.

Six looked around, everyone had their mouths hanging open, she shot them a thumbs up. Before turning and saying to Merlot (Who was also aghast)

"That's the best you can do? I'm the best the UNSC could do, let's see who's better."


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25 I have missed this 

Most people would not be happy staring down a giant Death Stalker/Elite hybrid.

Noble Six was not one of those people. Six was currently over the moon, she had her armor back and her augmentations, this creature suddenly looked allot less dangerous.

"Who are you?" Qrow asked, Team RWBY and Penny where looking at Six confused (Not that Kat and Carter weren't confused; it's just they could at least recognise Six inside her armor. Their problem was more the fact that they couldn't understand how she'd got it back on)

"I'm..." Six glanced up and leaped back to avoid the beasts stinger, Six looked up and saw the beast getting ready to swing its pincers.

Six grinned, pulling her fist back and brought it crashing into the beast pincers. Six skidded along the ground but not by much and the beast was visibly shocked, its eyes contracted as it reared back, crying out and bringing both pincers down towards the Spartan, who charged out of the way, pulling her hammer of her back.

"Guys it's me Six, I need help, keep this thing busy and I'll kill it." Six yelled. Moving back and running around behind the creature, swinging it around and hitting the beasts leg.

The leg broke, flying off and skidding along the floor. Six grinned, the others got the message and began to open fire.

Blake and Weiss kept out of the fight, shooting from a distance, Ruby and Yang dealt with the swarms of Grimm and attack bots. Scattering around the arena and attacking each of them, never giving them a break. Qrow and Six fought the Death Stalker, Six was back to full strength; she was truly a Spartan again, her strength was back, her armor was back, her shields where back, she was back. Kat was providing back up for Yang, covering the stubborn girls back with her sword, slashing through most of the Grimm with little resistance and Carter... Carter was like using a Nuke to demolish a house. The thing even stood a fraction of a chance from the robot suits mighty grasp, its fists smashed and destroyed; it was unfair, but No one (except Merlot) really cared about that.

That mixed with Remnants bizarre physics meant that Six was fighting with the strength of a Scarab tank, jumping higher and faster than anyone else in the room, sending punched that smashed bones of any Grimm that they made contact with. The robots fared no better, their grenades and bullets had some impact, but they weren't fast enough, Six closed the gap far too quickly and they shattered.

That being said Six wasn't invulnerable and she did have to take out the death stalker. The main problem came from how big the thing was and how heavily armoured it was. The one Six had helped fight in the Emerald Forest had been reasonably armoured, however this thing was covered in head to foot in armor, its body was tougher than a Scarab, the Elite scales where proving to hard to break and any grim skin was hidden underneath the bones jutting out of its body.

"We need to break the bone!" Six yelled, her brain running through a million possibilities before getting an idea.

"Carter are the missiles online?" Six yelled, unsure if she and Ruby had gotten around to fixing them yet (Six and Ruby where both distracted whenever they did this because Penny liked to watch and Ruby talked and Six's eyes kept wandering during important moments)

"This thing has missiles?" He called, flicking a bunch of switches on the weapon rack; Six was relieved when the launcher rose out of its hiding place and opened up.

"Okay good their online, aim for the skull plate, I'm going to see if Nora's crazy theory works." Six muttered, remembering a talk she'd had with the red head a few weeks ago regarding the fight against the other giant Deathstalker during Six's first day on Remnant.

...

 _"I'm telling yah Six we could use a Death stalkers sting against it" Nora cried through a mouth full of pancakes, Six looked at her sceptically._

 _"I dunno, their skulls are very think, how much force would you need to crack it?"_

 _"Less than what Magnhild is capable of, even your weedy hammer could do it!"_

 _"Great." Six said scowling (she did not appreciate her weapon being slaged off) "But I'm not buying it, maybe if you cracked the skull plate first, even putting a dent in it would do some damage."_

 _"I'm telling ya you could do it!"_

 _..._

"Time to see if Nora was right, Carter fire on the skull, anyone else I need a boost!" Six yelled, Carter moved into position, going to fire when their plan hit a snag.

"Its empty!" Carter yelled. Six looked and saw to her horror that Carter was right, the weapon may be online but it certainly wasn't loaded.

"Fuck!" Six swore at maximum volume, darting out of the way of another attack as the beast charged.

"Six what do you need!" Qrow yelled as he cut down a creep. Six responded as she darted out of the way of the huge uprooted ton of dirt as the beast dived underground and moved insanely fast along the ground.

"I need to crack the skull!" Six yelled. "Once that's open I can kill it!"

"Leave it to me friend!" Penny cried, appearing out of nowhere behind Six, her weapon... wow her weapon...

"How does that even..." Six said, looking in shock at the weapon Penny chose to use, well weapons...

Eight swords seemingly floated behind her, spinning around like a buzz saw slicing through Grimm easily as she smiled at Six. Six looked at her.

"You sure?" She asked, not doubting the girls skills, just not convinced that eight Swords could crack foot thick skull plate.

"I'm combat ready!" Penny said smiling happily, saluting and getting the swords ready, pulling them together into a tight circle, spinning them faster and faster as a green plasma built up.

Six nodded and gritted his teeth, looking at Ruby who was getting her scythe ready.

Penny fished building up her attack and let it go, the effect was incredible, vaguely reminding Six of an old movie she'd seen a little bit of when she'd walked in during the marines movie night. A green blast of near perfect energy, carving its way through the beast.

Six wanted to charge in and finish it off, however judging by the huge hole in the beast's skull (and the rest of the body) she probably didn't need to.

Six glanced at Penny and felt her face go red underneath her helmet.

 _I think I'm in love._

Penny smiled and walked over, beaming... Merlot was less happy.

"My creation! No, how could you? My perfect creation!" He practically cried as he looked down on the group, who looked at him in response.

"It was trying to kill us." Blake said blankly.

"Yeah we kinda had to kill it." Yang said, pulling a fresh ammo belt into her gauntlets.

"I mean if you think about it it's your fault; you did send it after us..." Ruby muttered. Merlot was not happy about that.

"You! You! You won't get away with this!" He yelled, slamming down on something in the control panel the group couldn't see.

He sat their panting for a few seconds before realising nothing was happening. The group looked to each other before looking up at him.

"Erm... is something broken?" Kat asked.

"Yes it most certainly is." 498 said, floating in. Six looked over and noticed a hole melted in the wall.

"I, what are you!? What did you do!" Merlot cried, leaning forward and yelling at the sphere, who wasn't impressed.

"Your moronic self destruct system was going to do unimaginable amounts of damage to the Project Ostium facility, as it's monitor I could not allow that so I took the liberty of disabling it. Via melting it." He said simply. Six looked at the sphere and noticed the slight red glow to the edge of his eye.

 _Hey let's not piss this guy of in the future okay?_

 _Yeah lets._

"I, Well, I..." Merlot blustered, Six board grabbed Gambol Shroud out of Blakes hand and shot the screen out.

"I was board of that conversation, anyway; we need to capture him, he's dangerous and I hate to think what would happen if someone had to fight that thing without Penny's help." Six said, nodding towards the red head, who bounced slightly and allowed her grin to grow bigger. Six smiled underneath her helmet.

"Okay, so..." Six started... until a wave of tiredness washed over her. She crashed to the ground on all fours as she grew shorter and her armor glowed slightly before flashing away, leaving her ODST set back.

"Guess it's got a time limit." Kat commented as Six struggled to get back to her feet. Penny offered a hand and six took it, slumping on her shoulders, she was really tired and didn't want to stand anymore.

"I guess so, still that's a pretty cool Semblance Six, is that what you where like back on Reach?" Ruby asked, Six nodded.

"Yeah, although I jumped around less... and I tended to use guns most of the time, Melee didn't work so well on Reach." Six said as Penny gripped her arms and pulled the tired Spartan onto her shoulders.

"Okay we need to find Merlot..." Carter said, moving forward and taking command. "... this facilitys pretty big, Seven/498 can you scan for him in some way?"

"I can't, 498 can you find him?" Seven said, looking at the sphere who span around looking around.

"He's trying to escape, he's making his way towards the exit, I have a map of this facility..."

"How?" Weiss asked, 498 moved in a way which you could interpret as something along the lines of a smile for a floating sphere, some kind of happy bounce thing.

"I've been around for millennia, this facility was built twenty years ago, it was something to do. Anyway we can't reach him on time on foot, however Seven brought more than people over, follow me, I stored them down here." He said, floating of as the group followed.

498 then burned a hole in the wall. ( _'I suppose this will help prevent future damage so this is somewhat acceptable... Somewhat'_ ) and the group slipped through (Penny ducked to prevent Six scraping her head against the ceiling.)

Two five members of the group what was inside was unrecognisable, to two of them they had seen them before but never used them; the last three however where ecstatic. Especially the Spartan over the androids Spartan who staggered off and leant against one of the vehicles, beaming at it.

"Hey guys... Does this thing look like a Puma to you?"


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26 Should we really be doing this?

Merlot was defiantly not having a good day, he supposed it was karma catching up with him; His morning had been almost perfect, he'd found a gas to capture those alien creatures, they'd been adaptable to his processes and he'd successfully made significantly more creatures than before.

However... she'd then arrived on the island. Who she was was escaping him; she seemed to know the naked two who'd arrived on the island a few months ago, she was also brutal, initially he'd though her armor was what gave her the insane amount of destructive power she normally had.

He was wrong.

Apparently she was fully capable of slaughtering his creations without that insane suit of hers and she'd brought friends along... who were also insane.

"Urgh! Kids these days..." He muttered as he rove, he was confident he could get the airship before they possibly caught up...

 _Vvvvrrrrrrrmmmmmm_

 _What's that noise?_

Merlot looked behind him; and then said something that would have gotten him fired if he still worked as a teacher.

Those kids where following him, on weird car things he'd never seen before.

One of them pulled up next to him and that armoured girl who'd ruined everything sent him a two fingered salute, gesturing to the girl on the back to open fire.

...

"Seven, have you done any other accident's like this? Because this is amazing!" Six cried happily as she pulled herself into the Warthogs passenger seat, while she may want to drive she also didn't feel like she could at the moment.

"Erm.. I don't think so, then again I didn't remember bringing these over." The Ai muttered, looking around the room.

"Well you dumped them all over my facility, I moved them here for the sake of not messing up my facility. That thing you're also supposed to care about." 498 said, somehow managing to look disapproving despite nothing in his face that would allow him to change his expression.

Seven flipped him of as Weiss asked.

"Erm... what are these?"

"UNSC tech." Six explained, then proceeded to point to various things in the room.

"That's a Mongoose; we mostly use them for scouting and because their faster than walking, this thing I'm in is a Warthog; their the backbone of the UNSC ground forces, their kinda like Bullhead except their ground bound and that over there is a Scorpion, their big tanks... oh and that purple things a Banshee, they're not ours but I'd be lying if they're not helpful... provided I'm flying them." Six said, Carter looked at Six; slightly shocked.

"Six are you making any effort to keep UNSC secrets?"

Six snorted.

"What I just said is hardly a secret."

"I'm aware, however you've been awfully flippant with information that should be..."

Six waved Carter off before he could finish.

"Look it doesn't matter, where not in UNSC space and it doesn't matter, anyway I think you should know a thing or two about getting information you shouldn't have, or did you make it up and you haven't read the nightmare inducing train wreck that is my file?"

Carter looked like he wanted to respond angrily, but he didn't, just sent a disapproving scowl before getting ready to leave (He didn't need a vehicle; he was still in a robot suit.)

Six took that as a good opportunity to start assigning vehicles.

"Okay who here knows how to drive?" She asked, Yang spoke first.

"I can ride a bike, so I could probably take the platypus."

"Mongoose, and that's fine whoever there's no weapons on them and believe me you need two hands to drive those things..."

"I'll cover her." Blake said, moving closer to the blond girl. Six nodded.

"Okay that's fine, Qrow can you drive a car?" She asked, the man surprisingly shook his head.

"Never passed my test. Too drunk most of the time."

Six scowled, this wasn't helpful.

"I can drive!" Ruby said happily. Six looked at the red head.

"How?" She asked, it wasn't like she didn't believe Ruby, this world broke her brain to often for her to try and apply reason to anything that happened to it; she was just genuinely curios as to how someone who was too young to drive (as far as she knew, she wasn't immensely familiar with the Remnant traffic laws.)

"Oh dad taught me how to drive on the forest path outside our house in the family truck, I'm pretty good."

"Okay, so Ruby get in a Warthog, Weiss could you get on the back? And Qrow can you fire from the passenger seat?" The two of them nodded and the three boarded their vehicle; Yang mounted the quad bike and Blake sat behind her, wrapping one arm around Yang and using the other arm to aim her gun.

"What about me?" Penny asked.

"Penny get the gun on the back of this one, I'll drive; my strengths mostly back, Kat can you ride shotgun?"

"Yes I can." Penny said happily as she clambered on the back of the vehicle (Which sank ever so slightly at the back when the redhead got on) Kat however didn't move.

"Kat you coming?" Six asked.

"Sure." Kat muttered grumpily. Six offered her a hand to help her in, but to her surprise she shook her head and pulled herself in with her one arm and a weird jump.

"I can manage myself." She said simply, Six shrugged and punched the accelerator.

...

"Six this thing handles like crap!" Ruby cried as her vehicle skidded around, Weiss hanging on for dear life to the gun turrets. (Qrow oddly seamed completely fine)

"It's fine!" Six yelled, having more experience operating a Warthog (and unaware that most cars only handled like a warthog when they were on Ice, not on solid ground.)

"No it's really not!" Weiss cried, gripping the turret so tightly that Six was sure it was going to leave a mark.

"Well do you want him to get away?" Kat asked. Weiss shook her head in response.

"Focus, where nearly on top of him." Carter called; him leading the pack and having the map (498 had chosen to interface with the suit; apparently he liked Carter because he actually followed protocols and treated rules as rules; only bending them when it was actually necessary to)

"Okay, I'll go on ahead, Penny get ready; I'll signal you to start firing; be prepared to shoot out his tires; we want to capture him if we can."

"You got it Six!" She said; bouncing happily as she did. (Six noticed she wasn't having anywhere near the difficulty hanging on that everyone else was)

Six pulled ahead, accelerating and making a sharp turn into the corridor with Merlot, Six saw the escaping scientist in some kind of weird hotrod/tank hybrid. A long sleek smooth body with too many exhausts supporting blue fire out the sides with what was clearly AI controlled gun turrets on the back.

Six spotted Merlot, sitting in a chair of red leather and protected by a full body cockpit that looked a bit like it belonged on a jet, although Six suspected that glass was tougher than normal, she'd spent enough time around both to recognise the difference.

Six pulled up alongside him, and then once Merlot had his attention on her she gave Penny the signal.

Penny open fired and at that point the universal law of fighting (IE: the first casualty of any battle is the plan) came true once again.

Penny's aim was true but merlots insane car stopped far too fast, he slammed on the brakes and the fire hit a few feet in front of him. His sudden stop had another problem though; he wasn't stopping or slowing down, he was doing a high speed three point turn; he speed backwards, pulling the car into a sharp left turn down another corridor (Six really had to admire the man's mental map of his facility)

With a slam of his foot onto the accelerator he shot back down the corridor and turned down the corridor opisite to where six had come from.

"Guys he's heading back the other way!" Six yelled into her helmet, sliding the Warthog back around so she could follow, sadly her big drifty turn was A: much slower, and B: done in a room that wasn't big enough to pull it off properly.

Thankfully the car still drove fine, unfortunately they all took quite a jolt at the impact and the lights where suddenly blinding as Six wized past, trying to catch up.

...

"...he's heading back the other way!" Six's voice came over the radio, spying him down the corridor yang wrenched the Mongoose after him, using the speedy little quad bike to catch up with the car.

The turrets flashed at an intruder, lifting up out of their slots and turning on the pair. Blake lent of the quad, slamming a Schnee dust cartridge into her weapons clip and fired several shots at the turrets, the speed of the corridor caused most to miss; however the shot to the nearest turret made its mark and the Dust infused bullet exploded a cluster of ice out onto the gun.

Yang used this to slide out to the side, pulling up alongside Merlot (Using the frozen turret as shield from the other one.

"I'm sorry students but class is over!" He called, an air of fake cheeriness in his voice as he slammed into the quad, forcing the smaller vehicle nearer the walls.

Blake growled and shot at the glass protecting him, unfortunately Six's hunch about it being bullet proof was proven right as the shots failed to penetrate the glass (they didn't even chip it.)

Yang felt her heart rate speed up as the quad's wheels grinded against the metal walls of Merlot's facility. She couldn't speed up or slow down; she was pinned. In a panic she looked around, seeing a possible out. Another corridor.

"Blake hold on!" She yelled, almost instantly the Cat Faunus had both arms around her teammate, the intimacy not bothering either of them despite how tight Blake was gripping, it couldn't bother her, if yang screwed this up she was probably going to get her best friend crushed into goop.

 _Come on girl, you can do this!_

Psyched up Yang gritted her teeth, clutched the handles tighter and the second the from wheel was free she turned, the quad bike skidded and shot of down the corner, Merlot stayed on track but Yang had managed to do something. Merlot had still been trying to crush the pair when they'd made the turn, suddenly his car was putting allot of force to nothing, it skidded and slammed into the wall, losing some of its exhausts into the process and snapping of the frozen turret.

Merlot's day was also not helped when Ruby careened next to him, Weiss wasted no time, turning on the Gatling gun and open firing, the bullets punching holes in the armor (it appeared Merlot had only had the resources to make the cockpit bullet proof)

Qrow grinned, one of his famous plans in mind; he'd been known for them back at beacon, depending on who you asked the success of Qrows plans would be drastically different.

For example, Summer was always the biggest supporter; they usually worked and you couldn't say they weren't creative.

Taiyang however would go quite and start muttering in his sleep; normally not being able to say anything coherent until the next day and Raven would tell you that her brother was an idiot and so were his plans.

That being said they usually worked, so Qrow Taking a gulp form his flask for luck (Ignoring how important coordination was going to be for this insane manoeuvre to work) pulled himself out of his seet and faster than most people could see scrambled onto the bonnet of the Warthog, ran acroos it and leapt into the air while drawing hsi sword, bringing it down on merlots car, intending to cut it in half.

Unfortunately this plan was one of the reasons Taiyang had a hard time sleeping whenever he thought about them, it might have worked if not for Merlots Cockpit being the first thing Qrow hit.

Whatever it was made out of it was stronger than Qrow's sword, the man practically bounced off the cockpit and slammed back into the warthog, barrelling over the bonnet and falling into his seat.

"Argh! Dammit, Ruby I need to try again!" he cried, Weiss and Ruby where about to start shouting when they saw bright sunlight streaming into the corridor; Merlot had opened the door and was trying to escape the facility.

"We need to slow him down!" Ruby yelled, Weiss nodded and still using one hand for support on the turrets handles pulled out her rapier, casting a gravity glyph on the back of Merlots car.

Weiss felt a surge of pride flow through her as the car began to slow down, being pulled towards the group as it tried to run, Merlot slamming his control in frustration.

Frustration that actually wasn't, he slammed down on a button on his dash board, the back of the car split opened, a jet engine sliding out of the back.

"Oh come on!" Weiss cried as the engine roared into life, the Glyph struggling to stay active as the force the car put out increased so drastically.

That being said it was fully possible it would have held... if Weiss' concentration hadn't received a metaphorical kick to the gut as the Warthog reared onto a dirt path.

Ruby swore loudly as the things handling suddenly shifted; it was basically the same but even more undrivable on dirt than it had been on metal, granted it got a tiny bit more traction however the beach they very quickly shot on proved hell, not as much as Merlot's car was clearly going through, however you don't really need traction when you have a jet engine pushing you along.

Straggling Ruby fought for control over the off roader, slowly gaining ground on Merlot's car.

 _Come on, just a little faster!_

Ruby was mashing the pedals and doing all she could but the Warthog just wasn't going fast enough to keep up.

"Ruby where are you!" Six's voice suddenly cut in over the radio, Ruby lo9oked down, not sure if she had to do something or if talking alone would do it.

"Six I can here you, where are you!" She called, to her relief Six responded almost instantly, showing the radio was clearly a hands free affair.

"On some kind of Beach, Merlot's just ahead and we can't catch up!" She called, panicking as Merlot's car hit the dirt and got its traction back, slowing inching ahead again. (Although Weiss and Qrow where doing an admirable job as gunners [Qrow simply used the gun on his sword] nothing seemed to want to break.)

"Okay, can you see a rocky arch a over head?" Six asked. Ruby nodded.

"Yeah I can see it why what are...?" Ruby's question was never finished because that instant Six chose to clearly demonstrate what she had in mind.

Six's Warthog came careening of the arch, dropping into the Front half of Merlot's car; completely crushing it as the heavy four by four made contact.

The car flipped, two much power suddenly pointing downwards into the ground, it caught and flipped; rolling over and over again until it finally came to a halt.

The Warthog was okay though, it may not have been as fast as Merlots hyper speed death machine thing (Although given what Six had seen it was not surprising that someone on Remnant had built it; given how they handled hand held weapons it was hardly a surprise.) But the Warthog was certainly better built, the pain was still scratched up and dented to hell, but it still drove off.

Six parked it off and clambered out; grinning in a goofy way as she pulled her helmet off. Beaming and saying to Ruby:

"Believe it or not that's only the second craziest thing I've pulled in a Warthog." She said, walking over to what was left of Merlots insane thing. Then laughed.

"Well at least one part of this thing was well built." The Spartan laughed, walking over and pointing, Merlots car was a burnt up wreck of metal; however the bullet proof Cockpit held in tact perfectly, Merlot had slammed into the glass and was passed out over the controls. Six was giggling the entire time once Carter caught up and carried the thing back to the airship Team RWBY had arrived in.

"You sure you don't want to come 498?" Six asked, leaning on the doorframe as the landing ramp retracted.

"No thank you, I have left the facility unguarded for far too long, the pest problem needs dealing with." He said, thinking back to the Grimm-Covenant-Dust hybrids that where still running around in it.

"Well... good luck with that then." Six said, waving as he floated of, before turning around, the realisation oif what had just happened sinking in.

She'd helped catch a terrorist, she'd stopped a dangerous bio monster and most importantly Noble team was with her, now she was on her way to head home and find the rest, Six beamed; life had never been better.

...

However... Six probably wouldn't have been so happy if she's looked back at the island, because standing on the beach was a lone figure. Three meters tall and enhanced to be more dangerous than most of its kind it looked at the retreating airship. It then turned around to look at the labs; it had lost it's brother in there; and that group had his killer.

It growled, the first noise it had made in many years it took one gigantic stride, heading towards the water, he may be running away but it wasn't going to escape, it was going to hunt the monster down and it was going to kill it, nothing would stand in its way, nothing would stop it, it was going to kill him, it had to, hunting was all it lived for, it had no choice, it was going to kill him.

The Hunters resolve made it advanced forwards, taking step after step, submerging itself in the water, it didn't need to breathe, it would survive, for his brother.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27 So Ironwood... Can I ask you something?

Six personally enjoyed the flight home. For one thing she wasn't driving the airship and could just chat with her friends, she'd been introducing Kat and Carter to Team RWBY and Penny when Merlot woke up.

To say the man was not happy would be an understatement. Six watched as he groggily got up, looked around and started slamming on the glass in frustration. He then tried pulling on the release leaver... Which didn't work anymore because the cockpit was no longer connected to the battery, and thus the thing was dead.

Watching the intelligent scientist slam on his controls in frustration was funny enough; However, it got better when Nora bent down and stuck her tongue out at him.

Merlot was frozen for about half a second, before his eyes contracted and he started yelling. Seemingly unaware that it was too muffled to actually understand what he was yelling.

Six couldn't help it, she cracked up, fell of her seat and laughed herself silly, rolling around on the floor like crazy, everyone else seamed to think she was over reacting... however Ruby then bent down next to Nora and pulled a face of her own... then so did Yang and Penny... Then Qrow.

Carter scowled at the group as Six lost it on the floor. Kat was smiling slightly and leant in towards Carter and said:

"Is it just me or does Six seam slightly different?" She asked, watching as Six pulled herself up of the floor.

"I've read her entire file. The woman who made the Lambardi crime family disappear of the map defiantly didn't act like this." Carter sad bluntly, watching as Six whispered something in Penny's ears. Penny adopted a huge smile and nodded.

"Well I guess she changed in the last five months, I mean she clearly made some friend's." Kat pointed out as penny whispered in Ruby's ear while Six did the same to Qrow, both of them smiled and got ready.

"I guess so, however aren't you concerned by how much she'd told them?" Carter asked as Six held three fingers up.

"Not really, I don't think where in UNSC space anymore; you'd think we'd have heard of a planet this dangerous. So it probably wont hurt with everything she's telling. Also I think she's become a better fighter while we've been gone, you noticed how she was moving right? And whatever it was she did with her armor..."

Carter nodded slowly, looking over at Six; who was counting down, clearly preparing for something.

"Yes I did notice something was different." Carter siged, slumping back on the bench. "I'm not unhappy to see her... I like it when Noble Team's numbers go up... but she isn't who we me on Reach... I mean she was crying when she met us... can you honestly see her doing that before?"

Kat simply shrugged. (which looks odd when you only have one shoulder.)

"No idea, lets be honest we knew her for about a week maximum, we never really knew who she was out of armor."

"Are Spartans ever out of armor?" Seven asked, projecting herself from Six's helmet and looking over at the group as Six slowly continued her countdown; Merlot viably sweating inside his cockpit the longer Six held her fingers in the air.

"Yes of course, why?" Kat said simply. Looking down at the AI.

"Oh it's just that I did some digging, I don't expect you to know this, even you carter, they don't document everything after all; but did you know it had been two years since Six had her armor removed the last time she wore it on Reach?"

"No I did not." Carter said simply. "How does that matter, I mean she was good, she had a job to do and as a Spartan she was fully capable of doing it."

Seven gave a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Guess I've got to go through this again; _Sigh_ Yes, as a Spartan Noble Six was fully capable of doing what she did; as a person though... she deserved far better, nothing made any of you less deserving of anything; I'm not saying what you did as Noble Team was bad or the wrong thing; but look at her." Seven said, pointing over to Six. Who had finally finished counting down.

On cue the four of them grabbed their trousers/skirts, pulled/lifted them down/up, exposing theirs butts to Merlot and waving them back and forth in front of the glass. His face was a unique mix of embarrassed, angry and terrified.

The five of them burst out laughing, except for Six who practically exploded with laughter, collapsing to the floor (again) and clutching her sides as she went red in the face and struggled for air. A struggle that only became harder when she looked over and saw what Qrow had done, he'd been rather... lose; on what 'lets moon him' (or words to that effect) meant. Aparently deciding to show him something else that the male body had on a similar level to the butt.

Six trully lost it when she saw what Qrow had done and his nieces reaction to it.

"Oh god! Qrow put it away !" Yang cried, shielding her eyes with her eyes.

"ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!" Ruby cried, desperately looking around for something else to focus on.

"It's no use!"

"Someone help me!"

"Blake do something!" Yang screamed, Blake just shook her head like crazy.

"I ain't going near that!"

"Weiss use you're glyphs!" Ruby cried.

"What would you suggest I do you dolt?!" Weiss screamed in response.

"They are aware he's pulled his pants up right?" Kat said quietly, leaning in so only Carter and Seven could hear.

"Goodbye childhood..." Ruby said, in shock as she tried to force her eyes away.

"Blake protect me with your boobs!" Yang said, diving towards the cat Faunu's and burring her face in her chest. Blake didn't go red, she just looked down.

"Seriously? Your doing this now?"

"Yes!"

"He's pulled his pants up you know." Weiss commented from the sidelines. Yang looked up briefly to scowl at her; before plunging her head back into Blake's chest, who just shrugged and plonked her book up on the blonds head and continued reading.

"What was the point of that?" Carter asked; even Kat looked at him in befuddlement at that.

"Because she thought it was funny." Kat and Seven answered at the same time.

"In retrospect..." Carter began before Seven interrupted.

"Look; Six is happier here; she's happy and mentally healthy for the first time in years, just... cut her some slack you know?"

"I, I still think she's making the wrong decision and not treating this situation with the seriousness it deserves; however... Yes it is nice to see her happy." Carter coincided. Seven smiled.

"Well that's about all I can ask of you." Seven said, smiling as she looked over at Six. Who was distracted slightly when her Scroll went off.

"Guess where back in signal range, Hello... General Ironwood sir!"Six said, jolting stiff and saluting. "... Yes I did salute... Sorry sir... I know it's not something that needs an apology... Uh hu... Yes... Yes we got him... Thank you... We took out another batch... thank you sir, but I had help... Yes it was them... Also Penny helped a lot... yes she handled herself excellently... Yes sir... Ah, you hear about that, my apologies; however I think it was worth running off, I was able to find... Yes I know... I found them sir, I found Noble Team... Well some of them and I have someone to help find the rest... Thank you sir... Actually can I ask something... yeah! You will! Thank you so much! I'll tell her now!" Six said, beaming happily as she walked over to Kat.

"Who were you talking to Six?" Kat asked as Six got near. Her smile was filling her entire face.

"General Ironwood of the Atlesian military, He wanted to check up on me and see what had happened on the mission."

Carter looked confused.

"I thought we where heading to a kingdom called Vale?"

"We are, The General has employed me to help with some matters though and wanted my report on the mission... What?" Six asked as Carter and Kat shot each other a look.

"Is it wise to wok for two different..."

"In this case yes." Six said bluntly, looking up at the two of them. "Where not with the UNSC, things are different here, I trust General Ironwood and on the grounds I'm the expert on Covenant for this planet I'm employed by him as a consultant when it comes to these matters, given their involvement he wanted to know what had happened as soon as possible. **Anyway!** " six said loaudly before Carter could respond.

"That bits not important, I just wanted to let Kat know he's agreed to sort out her arm problem."

Kat sat their for a second; processing this information. Raising her arm to touch the stump where a limb should have been.

"Wait... I, I'm getting a new arm?" Kat said, almost in shock.

"Yup, I'm paying for it, trust me I can handle it..." Six said in response to Kat's face " ...however he's agreed to get it done in Atlas, their by far and away the best at this kind of thing and he feels for cyborgs I'm pretty sure he's one for one thing."

"What do you mean think?" Kat asked, curiosity in her voice as a smile started to grow on her face.

"Well he always wears one glove over one hand and when I shook it it didn't feel like skin underneath to me, plus he has an interface chip on his forehead."

Kat was impressed.

"That sound's right, however I've got to ask; how advanced are the prosthetics here? We haven't really been of the island."

Six took a turn to look confused.

"What do you mean 'haven't really?'"

"We got carried away skinny dipping one time; ended up on a small island just of the coast of that one wasn't even a mile."

"Wait how do you swim?" Yang asked, apparently having had her fill of Blake's boobs and walking over to the Spartans.

"I never skip leg day." Kat said simply, then turned to look at Six. "Anyway you didn't answer my question."

"Opps, yeah if my theory's right and he is a cyborg than other than looks it will be basically indistinguishable from the real thing in terms of movements."

Kat beamed at that.

"Well I'm happy, Carter you got any questions over where we're going?" She asked, nudging him in the ribs with her elbow.

"Yes, you said it was a school for Hunters?"

"The terms Huntsman and Huntress'; but yes that's right."

"Okay, what exactly does a huntsman do; are they a military group or...?"

"I guess the best way of describing them would be Legal Mercenary's? They go to villages take jobs and do them; their mostly independent but there are some who work for their Kingdoms military; outside of that we're aloud to do what we want."

"Okay that makes sense." Carter said (noting that Six described herself as a Huntress not simply referring to everyone else; she must be really adjusted to being over here.) "So what does a School teach a Huntress? Is it purely combat or are their other subjects?"

Weiss chose to answer that question before Six even had a chance, talking like she'd ingested the welcome guide.

"Beacons classes are split between regular subjects and one's exclusive to huntress' Specifically combat classes and survival classes."

"Huntress' have to survive in the wild at time's, missions have a bad habit of running longer than expected and it's helpful to know what you're doing because civilisations rare out n the field" Six explained in response to Carters questioning look.

"Thank you Six, and to you two Miss... was it Weiss?"

"Weiss Schnee; and thank you; its a pleasure to meet someone who thinks ahead... unlike some people I could mention." Weiss said, glancing over at Ruby who was munching on a bag of victory cookies she'd brought along.

"You know you love her really." Yang butted in. Causing the Heiress to blush slightly.

"Anyway it was a pleasure to meet you all." Weiss said in an effort to recover.

"Yes it was; although I do have one last question and I hope you'll forgive me for asking this, I know it's inappropriate to ask a lady this..." Carter said as he glanced over at Kat. " ...However I'm curious to know; just how old are you five?"

"Seventeen, seventeen, seventeen, fifteen and... Penny how old are you?" Blake replied, pointing first to herself, then to Yang, then to Weiss after that Ruby before stopping on Penny and looking at her quizzically.

"Seventeen." She clarified. Six smiled before pointing to herself.

"While I'm not one hundred percent sure I'm roughly Sixteen; Beacons more interested in skill than age, although seventeens usually the age for first years."

"Your Sixteen eleven months and fourteen days old actually; you'll be seven teen in a couple of weeks actually." Seven said. Looking around at the groups shocked looks she just looked back at them.

"What? I know how old I made the body's, Carter your eighteen as of two moths ago, Kat you and Emile are seventeen and Jorge... well I didn't have to do anything to him so he's still forty one."

"Huh, didn't know that." Six said as she kicked back while the conversation drifted off in different directions as the airship made it's way to Beacon.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28 Welcome home... Can we go get the others now?

The flight from Merlot's island to Beacon took roughly three hours. During that time Six messed around some more with merlot, Showed of what she and Ruby had done to the suit and began buffing up Carters suit (Which they had loaded onto the airship before they left.)

There wasn't a huge amount Six could do; however she was able to clear most of the soot and burn damage of it, fixing the gash across the chest and in the under suit was going to be harder.

 _I wonder if Remnant sewing needles can penetrate this stuff?_

 _Knowing this place they probably can._

...

Six was happy to be home by the time the flight was over. Stepping out and breathing in the familiar Beacon air was joyous to her. Not to say she wouldn't ever be going back to the island, she wanted to get the rest of the UNSC vehicles and bring them over here. After all, it wasn't like it hurt to have a personal arsenal within easy reach.

Carter and Kat looked confused when they stepped out. Beacon looked more like a fantasy castle than a school to them. Even the uniforms looked wrong; miniskirts where not the standard garb of UNSC cadets.

Six however approached the waiting Professor Ozpin. Specifically she drove up to him, the gun turret taken of the back of the Warthog and Merlot strapped in place.

"Hello sir, what do you want us to do with him?" Six asked, gesturing to their prisoner.

"Just leave him here, the Vale police are ready to take him in, and you must be Kat." He said, smiling at the passenger sitting next to Six.

"Yes... Sorry but I'm not familiar with your name." Kat replied, looking down at the headmaster who chuckled.

"Well yes you wouldn't, hello my name is professor Ozpin; welcome to my school." He said, walking around and offering her his left hand to shake. Kat took it and smiled.

"Pleasure to meet you, I here from Six you've been very helpful to her during her time here."

"It's nice to know I've been helpful." Ozpin said, then he looked around.

"Six where's Carter?" He asked, Six pointed.

"He's in the mech." She said simply as Carter walked out.

"Ah well in that case I could you pack those away" He said, gesturing to the vehicles.

"Sure."

"Good, once that's done could you and Carter come visit me in my office, Six will show you how to the elevator, if you don't mind I'd like to talk to them alone."

Six hesitated for a second, she'd only just found them and now she was going to be separated again...

"It won't be for long, you and Miss Polendina should get your room ready for them; I've already sent the beds over."

Six beamed, Ozpin nearly always knew the right thing to say.

"Yes sir." She said finally remembering she didn't need to salute before she made the movement.

...

"ARGH!" Six yelled, punching the wall in frustration. She was back in her room in her casual wear (Purple shirt and black cargos) and was currently swearing bloody vengeance on whoever designed flat-pack furniture.

"Because that's helpful." Weiss said from Six's bed.

"You can stop talking." Six said, pointing an accusing finger at her.

"Hey I volunteered to help you with this." Weiss said huffily.

"Yeah and why was that?" She asked smirking as she looked at the Heiress. (Penny had gone out for icecream with Ruby so Weiss was helping her put the beds together) "Because it probably wasn't for your experience in doing this."

Weiss looked offended, although Six could see in her eyes that she knew she had a point.

"Well it's not my fault, this manual is garbage!" Weiss said, showing Six the pages. Six couldn't help but admit she had a point; the manual looked more like a random series of scribbles with some stupid symbols written next to it than anything helpful; it didn't even have any words to explain what was going on, just badly printed doodles a Seven year old could surpass.

"You could just ask me you know." Seven said, projecting herself out of Six's ODST helmet.

"Wait you can read the manual?" Six said, thinking nothing in the known universe could understand that hot mess.

"Oh hell no, but I'm an AI, I can scan the parts and figure out hundreds of ways they can go together, and based on the other beds in this room I can safely say I have some idea what to do."

"Okay let's get to it then!" Six said, watching as Seven pointed a blue light at the first thing that was needed to build the bed.

...

"So why are you actually here?" Six asked to Weiss (Who hadn't left even though her job of cheiff manual reader was rendered mute) once the two beds where finished.

"I'm not allowed to help out a friend?" Weiss said, failing to fool Six that it was innocent.

"Well sure, but... No offence; it doesn't strike me as something you would normally do, so what's up?"

"I, I... Urgh... I guess I just don't want to be around Ruby at the moment."

Six was taken aback.

"Really? I thought you were supposed partners."

"We are, it's just... I don't know, ever since Penny moved in it feels like I'm not needed anymore."

"Wait what?" Six asked, confused, what was she on about, it was team RWBY, not like they were just going to get rid of the 'W' was it?

"Ruby... She's my best friend, one of the few I actually have; and ever since Penny showed up she's been with her, it's like... it's like I've been replaced."

Six couldn't hide her surprise; she thought she was the only one who had a problem with this.

"Yeah... I kind of get that..." Six said. Weiss looked at her.

"What do you mean?" Weiss asked in confusion as Six went red.

"I, I..." Six's face suddenly went rock hard, grabbing Weiss around the shoulders. " ...Look if you tell anyone this I will hurt you."

"Got it." Weiss said simply, not really intimidated by her death glare.

"I, I like Penny, like... you know!" Six went red. "Like, like! But it seems like every time I get a moment alone with her Ruby shows up! And then their of doing it and I'm the idiot in the corner not doing a dam thing as the girl I like hangs out with her other friend!"

"And I know it's stupid! I know she has the right to hang out with who she wants' to... but... I..." Six buried her face in her hands.

"God I'm an ass."

"You really aren't." Weiss said, putting a supporting hand around Six's shoulders.

"But I am, I'm angry she's happy with someone else."

"Then I guess where both asses."

"Well at least with you she's a friend, I'm angry at someone because I want them to be something I haven't had the guts to ask them about!" Six said.

Weiss looked at her, her face going red this time.

"Erm... I also want Ruby to..."

Six looked up.

"Really?"

"What you said goes double for you okay!?" Weiss said angrily, not even trying a death glare. Actually her rage face was kind of cute.

"Sure." Six said with a smile.

"No I mean it! It could ruin the reputation of the entire Schnee dust company, the scandle would be..." Six stuck her hand in Weiss' mouth.

"I get it. I'll keep quite provided you do."

"Urgh...Okay, I like Ruby, it's dumb, she's a friend and I don't think she's even in romance, let alone with me; but I like her. She's actually happy to be with me, actually happy to work with em, despite my... me-ness... I know that doesn't say much beyond she's a decent person, but as the Heiress to the largest dust corporation in the world finding decent people is insanely hard. And... I guess there's something I find cute about her... but it would never workout... the second I come out my father 'll disown me and I'll never have a chance to fix my family name, I just... ARGH!"

Six looked at Weiss, impressed by the fact she wasn't crying, she knew that was what she did when she made a revelation like that. Six thought about what to do, maybe she could... No... Maybe...

"Weiss... I'm sorry, I, I didn't..."

"I know, no one knows; that's kind of the point." She admitted. The look on her face... She was heartbroken and resigned to it. Six clenched her fists.

"No."

"What?"

"No I'm not letting things go that way; come on." Six said, standing up and taking Weiss' hand and marching towards the door.

"Wait, what are you doing!?"

"Simple, where going to the library and where sticking our heads into Atlas law until we find a loop hole that means your dad can't disown you or that we can kick him out."

"Six that's not possible..."

"Have you ever looked before?"

"Well no, but..."

"Then let's try! Look..." Six looked at her head on. " ...Listen, your time with people can get cut brutally short, I didn't let Jaune and Pyrrha stay single for a reason, now come on, I'm going to make sure things work out for you two; even if it frigging kills me." Six declared, Dragging her down the hall.

Six didn't notice because she wasn't looking at Weiss, but if she had she would have seen something in the heiress's eyes, a look of admiration shining out as she took the lead.

"Very well... let's try and figure this out; assuming there is a way..."

"We'll find it." Six said as they pushed the doors open, it was time to start digging.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29 What was said

"So Carter, may I call you Carter?" Professor Ozpin said, looking over his mug at the Spartan in front of him.

While physically the boy may have looked like any other teen their was a presence he gave that made it impossible to treat him as such. His presence was always their and he had a calm sense of control; even in the somewhat alien environment.

"You may, it's not like I have another name to use." He responded simply.

Ozpin wasn't the only one sizing up the person he was talking to. Carter was trying to figure out Ozpin. The man confused him somewhat. All previous experience told him that this man had to be hiding something. Carter was an unknown and potentially dangerous? Why was he being so calm about this? He should be at least a little more suspicious of him.

"Very well, Carter, how are you?"

"I'm sorry sir?" Carter said, convinced he had misheard what Ozpin had said.

"Are you okay? How have you been, it was my understanding that you've been living on a desert island for the last five months with only one member of your team for company; are you okay with that?"

"Well, I'm still alive." Carter said, legitimately thrown of, starting to see why Six trusted this man as much as she did; or at least why she'd revealed what she did.

"That's not the same thing as being alive; believe me I know the difference." Ozpin said calmly as he took a drink from his mug.

"Given the situation it's the best I could expect."

"I see, I'm starting to see where Six got it from." Ozpin commented, Carter looked at him.

"Got what sir?"

"Six has change a substantial amount since she arrived; she was... damaged; badly. She's healing but it's a slow process. I think you being back will help immensely however."

"Six is strong, I highly doubt I would make that much of a difference." Carter said looking at him as if he'd just said he had a date with Venusian ballerina crabs.

Ozpin looked back at him.

"The body and mind are two very distinct entities. Believe me I have far more experience with that than anyone else alive. However, I will say this; Six is physically strong however; she thought you where dead; you must understand the impact that has on a person? Believing a friend is dead."

Carter nodded.

"Well yes; Noble team has been through a lot, I've seen the team fall apart and be patched back together, but we always moved forward."

"How did you move forward? It must have hurt to have them gone."

"Well yes; off course it hurt, but they where brave and knew the risk when we set off." Carter said, worried over what Ozpin was trying to do.

"So because you knew they might die it was okay?"

Carter sat there for a second.

"No, but we where at war, we had to keep moving forward or we'd lose and all of humanity would pay the price." Carter eventually said. To his surprise Ozpin nodded; what did this man want?

"What would happenn if the war ended?"

"I, I..." Carter stammered, not sure what to say, he honestly didn't have an answer, he'd be deployed somewhere else most likely and get on with life but that didn't sound like the answer to the question Ozpin was really asking.

"Six didn't have a war when she arrived here. She though her friends and comrades where dead, from what I understand she had to see it happen every time." Ozpin said.

Carter felt a shiver run down his spine.

 _What was that like for her?_

"Sir... If I may ask something?" Carter said slowly.

"You may." The Headmaster responded, casually taking another drink while tapping away at his screen.

"Six; what happened to her? How did she cope?"

Ozpin looked fully at him, then turned the screen around so Carter could see.

"She threw herself into whatever she could, she helped out a group of strangers naked in a forest; she had most of her limbs broken and still kept trying to fight. Then after that she started suffering regular nightmares. She was lucky to get four hours of sleep; her average hours of sleep where closer to two. Then she became immensely familiar with the school nurse once she started sparing practice. Every time she would act un-bothered by what was happening to her. Seeing this destructive behaviour I tried to talk to her on night; all I could get out of her was she missed her team and was trying to just ignore it forever." Ozpin looked over at Carter, who was looking worried.

"What happened after that?"

"I tried to send her on a mission with the closest things she had to friends, I thought a change of pace may help, and to some extent it did, then she found UNSC tech and her friends armor... Look if you want more details you should ask her, however after a certain point she did something; most people would call it insanely irresponsible and reckless. It probably was." He said taking a sip from his mug.

"What was it she did?" He asked, looking at the Headmaster; trying to pretend he wasn't on edge about asking this question.

"Well I had a drone following her, not because I didn't trust her, by that point she'd earned it; but because its not a good idea to let a student go out into the Emerald forest by themselves that early in the morning. What she was doing though, well take a look at this." The professor said, opening a file and showing a clip.

Carter recognized Six's new body and the girl following her. They appeared to be climbing a cliff, with Six gripping onto a tree and carving something with a very familiar knife into its trunk.

"What's she doing?" Carter asked as Six finished and began to pull herself onto the top of the cliff.

"Keep watching." Ozpin said as the camera zoomed in on the tree. The words where obscured for a few seconds as Yang finished the climb to catch up with Six however once that was over the message came into clear focus.

"Noble 1 Carter-259 Thank you Sir, for everything, I wont waste what you gave me." Carter recited, before turning to look at Ozpin.

"She, she made a monument to me?"

"To all of Noble team actually, it was the first step in trying to move forward with your deaths; this helped but I was sure the pain would never go away, and then she found you again." He said, stopping to look Carter full in the face. "The change is evident, she's happy and not in the same way she was before, nothing is holding her down anymore. She was happy to have you back in her life, I wanted to know why."

He smiled as he looked at the confused Carter.

"I wanted to know if you where worth it; if the pain you caused her was genuine and directed towards a worthy individual, I've seen people get hurt over things that aren't worth it. I am happy to report that you are not such a case. You are as good as I was lead to believe, so I am here to offer you a place at my school, there is only one condition I want you to follow."

"And what would that be sir?" Carter asked, knowing now exactly why Six trusted this man.

"Don't die, Six has lost you once and I'm not sure she could stand to lose you again, so keep on living; for everyone. You understand?"

"I will do what I can, I can't make that promise; but I will promise to do my best." Carter said. Ozpin smiled.

"That's the most I could ask for given the circumstances. Now feel free to head back down, I would like to speak to Kat... incidental is that her actual name or just a nick name? I've never heard Six use anything else when talking about her."

"Her full names Catherine, however I don't think anyone's used it in years thaough."

"Thank you Carter, send her up then, once she's done you may head over to your new room, I'm sure Six will have sorted it by now."

…

Actually Six and Weiss finished putting the beds together just as Carter finished talking to Ozpin. The two where currently in the Beacon library flicking through books on Atlas law.

They weren't looking for some sort of super miracle solution that would de throne Weiss father, that wasn't what they where looking for (Aside from the fact the most easy way of doing that would be to get the board to fire him, but if that happened they weren't going to give control to his daughter. Just another rich douche and that would stop Weiss from fixing the company; which she revealed was the main reason she hadn't abandoned the title like her sister had.

So this left them up shit creak without a paddle. They needed Weiss to still be able to take the title from her father, but also make sure he couldn't disown her when she came out as wanting a girlfriend.

"Well known said this was going to be easy..." Six muttered. Weiss looked over at the Spartan.

"Well you're the one who wanted to check."

"Yeah for you. Anyway its not like your not looking." Six pointed out, gesturing towards the heiress' stack of books. (She was also using a computer as was Six to check things where still in date and might actually work.

"Thinking of looking why aren't you looking for your teammates? I would have thought that would take priority over this." Weiss said as she pulled a book closer, a smile growing on her face.

"Who said I wasn't? Seven's running positioning right now, once she finds one of them I'm going out after them, but it takes time and I want to help you. That's not a crime is it?"

"No I suppose not. It's weird for me personally, do you know how long its been since someone did something for me without wanting to get something out of it?"

Six snorted.

"You do realize I want to do this because I want to ask Penny out right? I essentially want the competition out of the way."

Weiss took a turn to laugh.

"Yes, however you're doing it by helping me out, and anyway you did say you wanted to help me out remember?" She said with a sly smile.

"Well yes princess that is true. Still not sure what that makes me though..."

"Better than most of the people who try to do me favours." Weiss responded.

"Thanks. I'm better than a bunch of rich power hungry jerks, I now feel so much better about myself." Six said, fighting of the urge to laugh (They where in a library after all.)

"You're welcome, now back to work. Chop, chop!"

Actually laughing now Six stuck her head back into the book. Diving back into the world of Complex legal jargon and age old laws that while no one used anymore most of the time could still probably find life again when a dick wanted to fuck over his own child's life... again if any of what Weiss had said was true. (Based on experience Six was more inclined to trust Weiss on everything she said)

…

"So Kat, what do you think of Beacon so far?" Ozpin asked to the one armed Spartan. She thought about her answer for a second.

"It feels unreal, but not in a bad way... Sir I know you have questions and I will answer what I can but first... is what Six said true, can I... will this Ironwood man be able to get me a new arm?" Kat blurted, kicking herself over her mistake; she was a Spartan not a five year old, she should have more control than this.

Thankfully Ozpin didn't seam bothered at all by what she'd said, he smiled and said:

"Oh yes. He's actually just contacted me about arranging time of so you can get it installed. Six and Carter are invited to go with you actually. As well as Weiss Schnee."

"No disrespect sir, I can't really say I know the girl, but why her?" Kat said, thinking about the girl and wondering why she would be coming along with them.

"Her sister Winter will be taking you their and the General decided the two should have the opportunity to talk, apparently he feels guilty about keeping her so busy that she hasn't seen her family and thought this would be as good a time as any for them to catch up."

"Well that answers that, and sorry for my interruption sir its just..."

"I understand; I wouldn't want to lose a limb, although I must say you are very skilled with just the one."

"Thank you sir, but trust me I'm better with both of them." Kat responded, relaxing as Ozpin talked. Unlike Carter she wasn't afraid to trust him... Mostly because A: she thought Six had a good read on the man with more time to interact with him and B: Carter had given her the all clear when he returned.

"From what little Six has said your best asset was your brain." Ozpin commented. Kat smiled.

"Well that's probably true, has she really only said that about me though?"

"Unfortunately yes, your death... well it hurt her, she didn't want to dwell on it. She's gotten better recently though, I was just curious to know if you would help her improve from now on?"

"Of course." Kat responded. Ozpin nodded.

"Good, well in that case I wont keep you any longer. Welcome to beacon Kat, I hope you enjoy your time here and that your life on Remnant is pleasant as well."

"I hope so to sir." Kat said as she left the room.

…

Back in the library Weiss suddenly beamed.

"Six I have an idea, its so simple I cant believe I didn't think of it earlier." Weiss said, beaming as she put the book down.

"What is it?" Six asked, glad she could put her book down, the inside of her head felt like mush.

"Simple, while their isn't a legal reason to do it there is another way of doing it, with some minor legal help."

"So what is it?" Six asked looking at her. Weiss grinned.

"We use clause 4982 section B that states the family must produce a valid reason for discharge. add a bit of potential PR fallout to stop him from using the counter laws and my position is secure."

Six beamed.

"Then lets do it."


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30 I don't kn ow what to call this one.

Six was happy to head back to her room that night. It wasn't like she didn't like helping a friend, it was a rewarding experience and ultimately would benefit the both of them. It just so happened that at that point in time all Six could think of was how much thinking broke her brain.

To say her brain felt like sludge would be a massive understatement. It felt like she'd tried to forcefully shove it through a sieve and then stomped on it for a few hours.

 _All so we could use a PR fallout solution._

 _One we're not even sure would actually work._

 _You're not helping._

 _Do I ever?_

 _Good point._

Six shoved those thoughts out of her head as she pushed the door open, seeing Penny back in the room along with Kat and Carter.

"Hi guys, how'd the talk go?" Six asked as she sat down on her bed.

"It went great, I can see why you trust him so much." Kat said, stretching out on the bed.

"He certainly makes an impression." Carter said idly. Then he looked over at her. "Six, you made us monuments."

"I, well... Yeah of course I did; what else was I supposed to do?" Six asked, honestly wondering why this was coming up now.

"I don't know, it's just, you where only a member for a week... Did we really mean that much to you?"

Six looked at him like he'd just asked if she really needed to eat food.

"Let me think for a second, throughout my entire life I've been used and done horrible things by the most destructible people. I was kidnapped form my remaining family... Did you know I have that back home? Because apparently I do! Anyway I went through a training process where I'm fairly certain I killed or at least maimed at least three people, assuming I'm not forgetting anyone; then I was forced into being someone's wet man because he was a corrupt power hungry dick and knew the right people, that continued for years, I was an assassin before I was fifteen Carter." Six said, then looked at him, dead straight in the eyes.

"Then I was taken from his control and put into Noble Team, a unit I saw die for the right reasons, A group who wanted to save their home and where willing to do whatever it cost to get it done. Stand up to Doctor Halsey and tell her to piss off, sacrifice themselves to try and save the planet, perform actions like; say... Hacking into a secure database for information they aren't supposed to have despite knowing they could get tried for treason... I care about Noble team because it was the first time I knew I was doing the right thing,. The first time where I didn't have to think about being right or wrong, the first time where I trusted the intent of everyone. Of course Noble teams important to me and the idea of it being forgotten... No, I was not going to put up with that for anything."

"Six I..." Carter began to say before Kat cut him off.

"Hold on, you made us monuments?" She asked, looking at Six with an interested look in her eye.

"Yes, did you not..."

"Nope, but I am curious. What did you write about me?"

"Nothing but bad luck could finish her." Six said simply.

"Really? That's it?" Kat asked. Carter looked at her, as if asking 'what did you expect?'

"I carved it into a tree by hand in the middle of a monster infested forest; Forgive me if I couldn't get a book onto it."

"I think it's rather sweet." Penny said from her bed.

"See she gets it." Six said.

"Although I do have one question..." Penny continued.

"Erm... Okay what is it?" Six asked, looking at Penny.

"What was all that stuff you where talking about?"

Six sat their for a second, wondering what the orange haired girl was on about.

 _Erm..._

 _What is it?_

 _We did tell her about... You know, us..._

 _What the voices in her Six's head? That's not normally something you should talk to people about._

 _Actually it kinda is, that's basically what psychiatrists are for._

 _I think they exist for more than that._

 _Not the point; what I meant was, has Six told Penny about the whole... Spartan thing...?_

…

…

 _FUCK!_ The two voices cried in unison.

"Six..." Carter began to ask; but Six moved a hand to quite him.

"Penny... Have I told you about Reach before?"

…

What followed was a very long conversation in which the eventual answer Six received was a very clear: No, no you haven't.

While not Perfect Penny took it fairly well; Six suspected everything she'd seen on the island was making it easier for her to accept and it wasn't like the General didn't know and trust her; that probably made it easier for the robot to except and take in.

"So, you're a super soldier and just arrived one day?" Penny asked, the adorable expression Six always liked to see on her face as she looked at her purple haired friend.

"She didn't just arrive thank you very much." Seven called from the corner. "I happened to save her neck and bring her over thank you very much."

"Oh I'm sorry Miss Seven." Penny said, nodding apologetically to the AI. "But, you're stuck here now?"

"Basically, also Seven you had any luck on triangulating Jorge or Emile yet?" Six asked. Seven shook her ehad.

"Not really, I'm getting their, I've managed to lock down the continent the pair of them are on but..."

"No progress beyond that?" Kat interjected from the side.

"Nope. All I know is that one of them is in Atlas and the others in Menagerie, and that presents some problems on both sides."

"How so?" Carter asked, looking at the AI.

"Firewalls and lack of technology around." The AI said like it explained everything. When it became apparent that it didn't she went on.

"I'm currently to far away from Atlas to get into any triangulating software, the firewalls are too good and I can't get in, I was kinda hoping Six you might be able to get the General to let me in..."

"I'll do what I can when we go to get Kat's arm; actually we might as well look while we're there; it'll be easier and quicker than trying to find another day to go visit." Six said, nodding while she spoke and thinking how best to word the request.

"Sound's good. Seven what makes the other place hard to scout?" Carter asked, his in charge leader tone back in his voice as he spoke.

"Simply put, their isn't anything to use. Menagerie is just too new and suffers from a lack of any major communication points; it's not like it doesn't have anything; just... it's hard..." Seven siged, her projection flumping to the ground and looking up sadly.

"I'm sorry thats the best I could do..." She said, looking up apologetically.

"Don't be, once we're in Atlas I'll have no difficulty getting you what you need and as for Menagerie; well it's not exactly big; kinda depressing actually but the point is it shouldn't be too hard to cover... assuming we can get permission to visit." Six muttered darkly.

"What do you mean permission to visit?" Carter asked, feeling a lack of knowledge about his new location setting in.

"Well I'm not one hundred percent sure on the history what I do know is that the island is basically for Faunus only. Not impossible for a human to get in but they have to get permission from the Island's leaders; their usually pretty good about it although sometimes its a pain in the ass. I hear it helps to have a Faunus who knows you make a case, might ask Velvet..." Six explained, remembering the vague bit of history Blake had told her.

 _Although now I understand why she knows it all._

"Ah, that could be a problem..."

"It could be, but it should be doable. The leader their likes to encourage human Fuanus relations, we can probably get over there legally."

"And if we can't?" Carter asked, already knowing the answer.

"Then we go anyway and make sure we aren't seen." Six said simply. Carter grinned.

"That's what I like to hear, although lets try and get permission first."

"Oh defiantly; but lets concentrate on Atlas for now, any idea who's up their Seven?"

The AI nodded smirking.

"Well of course I do, I put him their remember."

"Well who is it?" Kat asked.


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31 Lets go find the man.

"Winter!" Weiss cried, running towards her sister before stopping and going into a more conventional walk towards her sister.

Six glanced at the woman. She was still fairly young, somewhere in her twentys. Her uniform... Well when Six heard the phrase 'Atlesian Special Forces' she'd expected something more... Well militaristic.

Winter was wearing thigh high boots connected to her waist coat (What was the point? It wasn't like they where going to fly off) and an admittedly awesome white coat. It wasn't a bad look (Given it was Remnant it was sort of what Six expected) but she could safley say she was wondering what was up with the women in this world and their insistence on fighting in high heels, Six couldn't say she was an expert of the foot wear but she was sure it made moving aorund harder, why7 a soldier would want that she didn't know. She also wasn't sure what was up with the exposed shoulders, but it wasn't like it really mattered; it just looked weird, maybe it was a dress uniform?

Six shunted those thoughts aside to listen to Winter and Weiss conversation. It wasn't like Ruby and Yang that much was for sure.

"Hello Weiss." Winter said curtly, looking around the court yard, seemingly judging everything around her.

"Winter I'm so happy too... erm, Your presence honours us." Weiss tried to correct awkwardly. Six looked on in intrest.

 _Wait what?_

 _Is she scared of her?_

 _Come on it's Weiss, she wouldn't be... would she?_

 _Maybe the Schnee family sucks...?_

 _Could be..._

"How have you been?"

"Oh, just wonderful, I'm top in my class and..."

"Silence!" Winter yelled as she slapped her sister around the face.

Six wasn't quite sure what happened, all she knew was for a second something flashed in her head, a memor of an older man hitting a woman, what was it? It looked familiar but who...?

Random memory speculation was pushed aside as Six's body moved without her giving it a comand. It just closed the distance in an instant as she drove her foot into Winters guts.

The group gasped as Winter fell to the ground, she looked up at Six. She couldn't see it though her helmet (Six was back in her ODST set, although she'd given Kat the sheild form it seeing as the two other Spartans where still struggling with making an Aura) Six's glare was as cold as the Schnee's first name.

"Six what are you!" Weiss cried, looking at the Spartan with shock across her face, she tried to grap Six's shoulder but the Spartan jerked away, looking down at the older Schnee sibling.

"Don't ever do that." Six said simply. Not even sure why she was so angry. It wasn't like it was hard slap, sure Winter sounded angry but their wasn't even a mark on Weiss' face.

 _Nice job breaking it hero._

Winter looked at the Spartan for a second, then to Weiss, and then she started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Six asked. Trying to pretend that laughing was an acceptable response to an angry Spartan punching you in the face.

"It's good to see my sisters made a friend who look out for her." She said simply, smiling as she stoop up. Offering her hand to Six.

"Winter Schnee." She said simply. Six (still a little confused) Took it and said:

"Erm, Noble Six, I would say good to meet you but I think I've already ballsed that up..." She said, going red, almost regretting her action. (Almost, the yelling would have been enough if she wanted her sister to be quite, their was no need for the slapping)

"I will forgive you, although my sister is still rather dense. And you two must be Kat and Carter?" Winter said, offering her hand to the other two Spartans (One of whom was looking at Six in anger.)

"Yes, pleasure to meet you." Kat said, offering Winter her one hand to shake.

"Nice to meet you, you must be Kat." Winter said as she shook.

"How could you tell? Was it the arm?" Kat said, her head tilted and a silly grin on her face.

"Actually it was the fact Kat's more of a girls name, So you must be Carter." She said as the last Spartan shook her hand.

"Yes." he said simply.

"Well, if where all hear we should..." Winter said, before getting distracted by someone calling:

"WEEEEIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS!" Ruby cried, charging towards the group at top speed, literally leaving a trial of rose petals behind her as she ran.

Six was only just able to get out of the cloak wearing girls way so she could hit Weiss instead of her.

"Ruby _Gah!_ " The Heiress cried out as she was tackled to the floor.

Six glanced at Winter, who was looking at the younger girl with a look that indicating the parts where fitting together in her head.

"Weiss you shouldn't have left so early! I was going to give you these!" Ruby cried, shoving a bag of snacks into Weiss' arm.

"Thank you Ruby I..." Weiss said, trying to get the younger girl off her but it wasn't easy, Ruby had a vice like grip when she wanted to.

"And you forgot your suitcase!" Ruby said, shoving the white case into the girls hands.

"Ruby I have my clothes..." Weiss cried out exasperatedly, pointing towards the other suitcase she had near her.

"Not those silly, you forgot Myrtenaster's repair kit!" Ruby said, gesturing towards the rapier strapped to Weiss' waist.

"Ruby I'm going to be up their for two days, I hardly..."

While this argument was going on the Spartans looked at each other. They didn't actually have permission to be out beyond those two days, in theory they shouldn't need it; it should be a simple case of taking Seven to a specific location, letting her find the missing Spartan, getting him and heading home. However, Six knew full well that things could go horribly wrong and the simple search could end up taking far longer than that.

"So you are the Ruby Weiss has written about." Winter commented, looking down at the girl who was currently straddled over her sister.

"Yup!"

"Well Weiss your description of her seams acurat." Winter said simply as Ruby got of the embarrassed Heiress. Unable to resist Six asked:

"Hey Winter how much has she..."

 _Thwak!_

Six didn't finish because she was suddenly hit by two people. As Six looked up she saw the two Schnee siblings, both with one fist outstretched as they looked down at her.

"Okay, that much." Six said as she stood up.

"I don't know what you're talking about, I was simply returning the favour." Winter responded with a sly smile as she boarded the airship. Weiss didn't say anything but she didn't really need to. The look of furry on her face told Six everything she needed to know.

…

The flight over to Atlas passed relatively quickly. Most of which passed in a haze of snacks provided by Ruby (Fun fact, Ruby was amazing at baking; she had no idea what was in her cookies but they tasted absolutely amazing.)

When they touched down Six was surprised top see the general waiting for them.

"Ah greetings Noble Team, I am General Ironwood, it's a pleasure to meet you." He said before focusing on Kat.

"I'm happy to say we nearly ready for the surgery, we just need to get your measurements and we can attach the prosthetic. I hope we can get you back up to full strength as soon as possible." He said clenching the fist that was covered by his glove.

"I hope so to sir." Kat said smiling as they began to set of towards the hospital, acting quickly Six moved forward.

"Sir!" She said darting ahead of the General and walking backwards so she could talk to him.

"Yes Six?" He asked, wondering what Six was going to ask.

"We believe one of the other members of Noble team is out here somewhere, our AI's trying to find him but we can't get a read, could you... Let us borrow an array of some kind, not for very long! Just long enough to..."

"Go ahead." He said simply, Six bawlked, did her really have that much trust in her?

"Sir I must object..." Winter began to speak, but the General held up a hand to silence her.

"Winter go with her and meet up with us once Six has the location of her team mate. Keep an eye on her AI and ensure it's only triangulating someone."

"Sir!"

…

"You know I wanted to catch up with my Sister today." Winter said coldly as Six bent over the console, bordly tapping away on the metal while Seven did her thing.

"We're not asking you to accompany us on our search, by all means hang with Weiss once I've found my teammate." Six shot back.

"Six that would be foolhardy in the extreme, the Grimm out here..."

"I know, their huge and a pain in the ass, I've done my research," Six said, thinking about the monsters that lived out here. Atlas had a Grimm problem, an unusual one admittedly; but still a problem. The cold made most Grimm back off or stay away form the Kingdom. The ones who didn't... Well, it didn't end well for the hunters who had to fight them.

The type of Grimm that could survive in the frozen wastes of Atlas where nearly always huge, a sign that they had A: lived a very long time, and B: they hadn't lost to any of the hunters who'd tried to kill them before.

Grimm like those where insanely powerful and not something a single hunter wanted to run into; they fought them in teams with the backup of airships normally.

"That is putting it lightly." Winter said coldly.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, you ever fought a Scarab? Trust me you..."

 **"I found him!"** Seven cried, her hologram bursting out of the console as she fist bumped the air.

"Where!" Six exclaimed, slamming both of her hands onto the console and beaming.

…

"Are you sure this is wise!" Winter asked from the piloting seat of her ship.

"Heck yeah! We know what's out their and we are not leaving him to face those things." Six said simply.

"You are aware we could run into those Grimm while looking for him right?" Weiss pointed out form her seat. (The Heiress had insisted on coming if Winter was. (That and she felt like she owed Six for her help with digging through all the legal garbage... Even if she hadn't confronted her father yet.)

"Well yes if you want to be boring..." Six said dryly.

"But Kat's only just had her arm installed..." Weiss began to argue but...

"It's okay, this thing's great and it's not my first time with a cybernetic limb." Kat said, giving the metallic fingers a good wiggle before clenching them into a fist.

"If you're sure..."

"I am, trust me I'm more than ready to get back into the fight." Kat said, grinning like mad. (Actually she hadn't stopped grinning since the arm had gone online.)

Six smiled, standing up and walking over to the back of the ship, looking out at the frozen plains. They where strangely beautiful in their way...

"Winter!" Six yelled, suddenly becoming aware of something distinctly less beautiful in the distance, closing in fast.

"What is it!" Carter yelled, running to the window.

"Grimm, big, really big and moving fast!" Six yelled, grabbing Carters fingers and pointing towards what she'd seen.

"The radars showing something! Everyone buckle up!" Winter yelled. Gripping the control sticks as hard as she could.

The group darted back towards their seats, all of them buckling in, except for Six who was slightly too slow.

Mostly because the thing casing them finally caught up with them and sunk it's claws into the back of Winters airship.

Six didn't know what was happened, one moment she could see the inside of the ship, the next the sky and group were flying past in rapid succession; Six felt Six, what had happened! What was going on! What did the Grimm do!?

Six didn't know and she couldn't check, she had to survive hitting the ground; a flash of purple sprang around her just before she hit the ground.

She still hit the ground as her body ceased up, not budging an inch despite the speed at which she hit it; rolling down the hill and only stopping once she hit a fur tree at the bottom.

"Urgh... Thank you armor lock." Six muttered as she forced herself up. Clad once again in her Spartan armor she stood up, looking around.

All she could tell was that she was in a forest. Not particularly helpful.

"Seven where are we?" Six asked, looking around at the sky in hopes of seeing Winters ship. Sadly she couldn't, she was in a forest and that meant trees above her blocking her view.

"About one hundred miles out of Atlas, sadly I don't know anything beyond that, signals garbage out here." The AI muttered darkly.

"Okay, do you know what hit the ship?"

"Nope, couldn't get a good look at it because of the snow." Seven responded.

"Great, what about our guy? You know where he is?"

"Yup, he close actually."

"Well that's something, any idea where?"

"Follow me." Seven said simply, turning away form her and pointing deeper into the forest."

"Yay." Six said, not looking forward to the trek ahead.


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32 Hunt through the snow

This experience had taught Six many things. One: Snow sucks, the stuff was wet and cold and made navigating an immense pain in the ass because everything just looked white. Two: The Grimm around Atlas truly where as dangerous as she'd been told and finaly, Three: Screw parts of the world with no good signal.

As the pair trudged along Seven was sending out distress messages while trying to keep track on their target. The problem was their target keep flickering and jumping about and it was starting to snow, meaning no signal could get through.

To put it simply, Six felt completely boned in every sense of the word. It wasn't exactly a new experience but it wasn't one Six enjoyed whenever it did happen.

"Any luck Seven?" Six asked.

"For the tenth time no, I promise I'll tell you when I get something." The board AI said, groaning as the tracker jumped around again. "Dammit! What is with this guy! He wont stay still!"

"I don't know, am I still heading in the right direction?" Six asked, praying she didn't have to change direction again, navigating this snow was hard enough, let alone having to go back up the hill she'd just finished climbing down.

"Yes, you just need to veer left by 30 degrees." Seven explained. Groaning Six headed off, thankful for her semblance, being seven foot made it much easier to move through the two feet of snow. Also having the Spartan armor on also helped against the cold, mostly because it was seeled properly and wouldn't let anything in.

That didn't mean however that she was safe. Six hadn't had much time to practice with her semblance but she did know this; just walking around she could maintain it for a while, however as soon as she got in a fight it would start to wear out quickly and if she lost the armor out here...

Six did not like the idea of freezing to death, so if the worst came to the worst she was going to run, she didn't need to fight (if anything it would probably be completely suicidal) just get away.

So Six kept on walking for hours. Fighting through the snow and tree branches. Frequently having to break them and climb over all sorts of obstacles. Rocks, trees, ice, Six had never considered these things obstacles before, no Spartan should ever have to admit a rock was giving her trouble; however... it was. And she felt ashamed of that.

"Six I'm picking something up!" Seven said eventually, a few bits of static flickering over the headset.

"What is it!" Six said, looking around.

"This is Winter Schnee of the Atlas... We are in need..."

"Winter! Winter are you okay!" Six yelled, trying to get something to go through.

"In serious danger... We..."

"Winter!" Six yelled, then looking towards Seven (Who was an AI chip inside her helmet so all she really did was look to the left at yet another bloody tree)

"The signals to bad, this blizzard is getting is insane! You need to find somewhere to hide out for the until it's passed."

"There out here! I need to find them!" Six yelled, speeding up while trying to follow Sevens directions, which where becoming fuzzier and fuzzier the more the snow sped up.

It wasn't just the snow, the wind was picking up, even through the nearly indestructible Spartan armor she was cold, not in any danger, she could fall asleep on the ground and not die, Spartan armor was made to function in the vacuum of space, it should have been able to survive an Arctic. Emphasis on should. It would have been able to if it wasn't suffering from one tiny flaw... The fact that it was suffering from a not very well repaired chest and helmet.

Six had been able to restore the suit to a functional state with Remnants tech and her own knowledge, but she wasn't a technician; there was a limit to what she could without the proper tech, the suit was not sealed properly and Six was feeling it.

"Six you need to find to shelter!" Seven yelled as loud as she could into the Spartans ears.

"I'm near, I can reach him!" Six yelled, struggling to keep moving.

"No you're not, he's still over a two kilometres away, I know that's not that far but you wont make it in this blizzard!" Seven cried again, desperately trying get the Spartan to see sence.

"I can do it!" Six yelled, she had to find him again, she had to keep going.

"No you can't!" Seven yelled, deciding the Spartan wasn't thinking straight she decided to try a little program she'd uploaded into the suit.

Six was still trying to move forward when the programming kicked in. Suddenly her legs weren't moving around, she couldn't keep going. Her body wasn't doing what she told it to.

"Sorry Six, I'm taking charge here." Seven said; steering the girl towards a nearby cave.

"Seven what's going on!" Six asked as she crouched down in the cave.

"I'm sorry Six, I uploaded a program into your armor. I needed to get you out of the cold, I made a program so I could move around the suit, the original plan was so I could help you in a fight basically by puppeteering the armor around the battle field." Seven explained. "I just elected to take use of it now to get you out of the cold."

Six in theory should have been mad, but surprisingly she wasn't. The cave was warm while the suit built a wall of snow to block the entrance and keep the air in.

"Six I'm sorry... I know you want to find him. But you couldn't stay out there."

"I know..." Six said simply, slumping back against the wall of the cave.

"I can still track him, only just but I can still do it." Seven explained.

"Is he near by?"

"No, he's heading out again; He must have a camp around here." Seven said, then turned to look at Six. She'd flumped back against the wall and groaned as she folded her arms.

"Six..."

"I wanted to find him..." She muttered, sinking her head into her legs.

"I..."

"Why did I think it was going to be easy? Why did I think I could just... go out their and find him! Why did I think reuniting Noble team was going to be easy!" Six yelled, throwing her arms out before folding them again.

"Six... I know this isn't perfect..." Seven said, slowly approaching her (even if physically her chip was about an inch behind her head because it was plugged into her helmet.) "But... You can find them, it, just might take a while..."

"I know..."

"You do want to find them?" Seven said, looking at the Spartan with concern.

"Of course I want to find them!" Six snapped at the AI, who flinched before Six calmed down and continued.

"It's just... Knowing he's so close, knowing I can find him; knowing he was so close!"

"I know it must be hard on you Six..." Seven said, putting a tiny blue hand on her shoulder. Six moved her head closer to the AI.

"That's not the only thing..." Six muttered slowly.

"Your worried about everyone else." Seven said simply. It wasn't a question, she knew full well that was what the Spartan was worried about.

"Yeah... I mean they all agreed to come along but..."

"Six, you're not a Spartan anymore..."

Six tilted her armored head to look at Seven.

"That's a Semblance, as are your augmentations, they're not actually there anymore I shut them down, Listen.. You are a Huntress now; you're worried; as is everyone else. You fell out of a moving plane for craps sake! I'm sorry there isn't much you can do."

"What do you mean much? I can't do anything right now!" Six snapped, grabbing a small chunk of ice and throwing it at the wall.

"Yes you can, Stay alive, I can't tell you much but they survived the crash, I guaranty it." Seven said simply as Six threw another lump of ice.

"I know... but..."

"Nope, we're going around in circles, I specifically fought against that by dragging you in here; I didn't escape a literal circle to start talking in one." Seven said, folding he arms and looking at Six.

"I, I... argh, okay." Six said, looking around for something else to talk about. Eventually she looked at Seven.

"So... what's up with the body?" She asked. The AI looked up at her.

"What body? I'm a hologram remember?" Seven shot back. Gesturing to her light based body.

"Erm, okay yeah bad term. Lets try again, what's up with you're construct, AI's are free to chose their own right?"

"Yup, I made this body based on what I found inside you're head." Seven said, grinning as she lay down on the floor; her hand's resting behind her head.

"Why? Oh and thanks for raiding my head yet again." Six said, looking towards the AI.

"Eh, I liked it. Do I really need any other reason?"

"Not really, I just... Why my head? Why not use Kat or Carter? I mean they where nearer right? Why go all the way to use mine?" Six asked, curious to find out the answer.

"Well... I could find thing's I liked in your head." Seven said simply.

"What do you mean 'Thing's I liked'?"

"Well All I found in Emiles head was knives and how to kill thing's, that was basically all his dreams consisted of. Jorge didn't really have any figures I felt comfortable using... Kat and Carter both thought of each other so no one else was really available and you... Well..." Seven let out a sly smile as she looked up at Six. "You where just surrounded by cuties!"

Six went red under the helmet.

"I, I don't..."

"Yes you do, Don't lie to me, I literally went inside your head remember? I know what you where thinking." Seven said, interrupting the Spartans comeback before she could finish it.

"Okay fine, but why my teacher? Like out of everyone you chose Professor Goodwitch?" Six asked, looking down at the AI who snorted.

"I'm not just made out of her mate." Seven snorted. "I'm made out of a lot more than her, for example I have the booty of one Miss Yang Xao Long, The physic of Miss Goodwitch and my face is kinda made out of a hybrid of Coco and Velvet."

"And the hair?" Six asked, curious to the answer.

"Oh I used that transfer student, what was her name... Like Cinder, I think?"

"Who?" Six asked, genuinely nonplussed about who she was on about.

"You know her, long dark hair... Yellow eyes..."

"You sure you're not thinking about Blake?" Six asked.

"Yes I'm sure; she's a transfer student from Haven... at least... Hang on..." Seven said, her brain running through thoughts at a million miles an hour.

"Seven?" Six asked, concerned as the AI started flickering.

"Something's wrong, something's wrong with her file, her papers, something's off... I need to go deep diving, I'm sorry Six I gotta go!" Seven said, suddenly flashing and disappearing.

"Seven, Seven!" Six cried, grabbing the chip and pulling it out of her helmet, looking down at the I item in her hand.

The chip didn't do anything, the cold metal object just sat their in her hand.

"Argh!" Six yelled, plugging it back into her helmet, might as well let her have the helmets processing power.

Now though... Six was left alone, sitting in a cold cave with no one to talk to. She sat their, wishing for someone to talk to.

Well, for a little while...

Soon she heard something.

 _Clunk, Clunk, Clunk, Clunk._

Six jerked back to life. Jumping to her feet and pulling her hammer out (She didn't turn it on, something about setting of a gravity hammer inside a cave struck her as an insanely bad idea.)

"Who's there!" Six yelled. The clunks stopped for a second before they started to speed up.

 _Crap!_

 _Do you think it's a Grimm!?_

 _No, it couldn't be!_

 _Why not! This is a cave! Their could easily be Grimm in here!_

 _No, no it couldn't be!_

 _Why not!_

 _How many Grimm clunk!_

 _I don't know! I'm just a voice!_

The answer came around the corner.

 _Six, oh my god! Six! I can't believe this!_

Six towards the armoured figure as fast as she could. The figure turned around and got the surprise of it's life when another figure in very familiar armor rammed into it and wraped its arms around him.

"I, what! Six!" It cried out, looking down at the Spartan who underneath her helmet beamed back at her fellow Spartan.

"Jorge! You better bloody believe it!" Six cried out as she pulled him back into an even tighter hug.


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33 Yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,yes!

"I, Six!" Jorge said, pulling his helmet of to look at the Spartan, It was a shock to Six to see her friend back exactly how she remembered. Every scare, every blemish was exactly where it should have been.

Smiling Six pulled of her helmet so she could look back at Jorge, who was... surprised to say the least.

"Six, I... Well that's not what I was expecting." He said weekly, looking down at the Spartans face.

"What do you mean?" She asked, tilting her head to the side as she looked at Jorge.

"Well, I though you where older..." He said. It was at that point when Six remembered what Seven had done for her and not for him.

"Oh right, you've missed a lot haven't you..." Six muttered, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly.

"Yeah have, however could you tell me once where back at camp? This cave isn't particularly safe." Jorge said. Six nodded and followed him down the cave.

"So where have you been living for the last five months?" Six asked, trying to keep stride with her friend/teammate, who was still taller than her despite having her augmentations currently on.

"Well I started out in cave, but I found a small settlement recently, and really it's been five months since we destroyed that carrier? Wow time flys doesn't it?" Jorge said, a happy tone in his voice that sent a shiver down Six's spine.

 _He, he doesn't know does he?_

 _No, no he doesn't._

 _Should we tell him?_

 _Don't ask me questions I don't want to answer..._

 _Wait you're feeling guilty about something?_

 _I'm aloud._

 _I know, it's just odd._

 _Odd or not it doesn't change the fact we don't know what to do!_

 _For now nothing, We'll wait till we find Kat and Carter again._

 _Yeah, Thats probably for the best._

Six forced a smile back onto her face as she asked:

"Erm, so... What's this settlement like?"

"It's called Crate, it's reasonably big given what it is, they found me and I helped them out with a bit of a Grimm problem they'd been having; you know what Grimm are right?" Jorge asked, Six nodded.

"Yeah of course; I'm currently attending Beacon academy, I'm learning to fight them." She explained, grinning as she thought of her school.

"Beacon, I thought the school was called Atlas?" Jorge responded/

"The one in this Kingdom is, actually it sort of is the Kingdom... Beacons the school for the Kingdom of Vale." She explained, gesturing the in the Kingdoms vague direction. (Being a Spartan gave you a very good internal compass)

"Ah, well that makes sense, learn anything good there?"

"Quite a bit, but that's not important, what the hell's been happening to you!" Six said, not really interested in recounting her life story right now, the less she had to talk about her early days and the stress of losing Reach and her teammates, she had to keep the subject away from Reach.

"Fair enough, I would describe Crate but just look." He said as they left the cave, pointing towards the icy fields.

Six looked at what he was pointing at. It wasn't really a Town and Six could easily see why it was called Crate. The main feature of the town was a massive boat lying on it's side, a three hundred meter long carrier, beached and succumbing to gravity as it lay on its side like a board sea lion. This seamed to act as the towns main dense as it completely blocked out the cove which was the only way into the area where the main part of the town lived.

The actual town was compromised of the containers the ship had been carrying; they had scattered across the ground and been forced open to act as shelters. Six looked around, noticing how some where being used to store things (Most notably the weird pure white crops that grew in the fielded area which grew on the side of the mountain range which acted as one of the walls to keep the Grimm out.

Moving down Six could see some of the crates had been welded together to act as bigger homes, warm fires flickering from inside.

"Wow..." Six said, looking around. She'd knew that you could find villages outside of kingdoms, but seeing something like this in person.

"It's great isn't it?" Jorge said, smiling broadly as he looked out at the town he called home. "Come on, lets get to my home before the blizzard gets worse."

…

"Jorge, Jorge..." A voice called the next morning. Six jolted awake, looking around.

Six had fallen asleep the previous night in Jorge's home. Four yellow crates welded together (They where arranged in a kind of square shape so the seven foot Spartan could stand) with the edges cut out to form a home. The interior comprised of a gas cooker a roughly carved bookshelf with a variety of stuff on each shelf. Outside of that the only other thing in the sheltered was blankets, lots and lots of blankets, they where nailed to the wall and floor plus there where a ton of lose ones scattered everywhere, Six pulled herself out form under the mound she'd been sleeping in.

"Jordge you've got a visitor." She muttered sleepily, pointing towards the other Spartan before crashing back to the ground with a dull flump.

"Huh, Oh... Lucy!" He said, proceeding to do something very odd. He ran over to the mirror taped to the wall (technically it was a very polished bit of metal) Pulling his helmet of and giving his hair a quick comb. Before looking at his face to see if it was clean.

 _What's he doing?_

 _You seriously can't figure it out?_

 _Figure what out?_

 _You'll see._

"Jorge?" The voice (Apparently called Lucy) asked as he ran to the doors of the crates and opened it.

"Lucy, hi!" He said, leaning against the door and trying to look cool. Six couldn't help but giggle, the dude was forty one, he looked good for his age but was still forty. Six rolled over a bit to see who he was talking two.

Well she looked nice enough, her extremely pale blond hair had one small fleck of grey running down her fringe, it was hard to get a read on her physic because of the winter clothing she wore hid most of it, but she looked in good enough shape. Her face bore signs of age but not to an extreme, she had a few markings on her face that indicated she'd been in the odd fight and a few lines. The only slightly odd thign about her where the white bear ears poking out between her hair.

Six sat their silently while the two talked, pretty sure Lucy hadn't noticed her.

"Well it's good to see you made it threw the blizzard, I was worried about you." She said, smiling slightly as she looked at him, a small twinge of red appeared on her face as she spoke.

"Nah, no Blizzards going take me out." Jorge said with a hearty thump on his chest plate. She giggled.

"Well that's good to know, anyway it was good to see you and who's that?" She said, stopping suddenly, finally having seen Six lying on the floor.

"Oh, that's Noble Six, she's an old friend of mine." He said as Six struggled her way out of the tangles of her blankets.

"Hi." The Spartan said, struggling to get free from her fluffy prison.

"Oh, I didn't... I mean... I was just..." Lucy said, seeing what was going on; or at least what she thought was going on.

"Come on in, I'll put some tea on." Jorge said, apparently not seeing the problem (Although Six knew full well that if it had been a few months earlier that she wouldn't have seen the problem either.)

"Noo, no, I wouldn't like to... I mean..."

"Lucy was it?" Six said, finally wriggling out and walking up to her, her semblance disabled as she held her hand out. "It's not like that between us, I'm like Sixteen." She explained, offering her her hand.

Lucy carefully took her hand and shook it, her eyes didn't give Six hope that she could fix this mess, but she was going to try.

"Yes my Name's Lucy, your Six?" She asked. Six nodded.

"Yes. Don't worry you're not the first person to think it's a weird name." She said, firmly shaking Lucy's hand. "Also, seriously, you want that tea? I don't know about you but it's bloody cold out here." Six muttered, wishing her semblance had held up the night as the Spartan armor was warmer than the ODST set.

Lucy seamed to think for a second before eventually agreeing and coming into the room.

…

The morning was rather pleasant for Six, or at least the first hour or so, the relief of finding Jorge was wearing off and she was getting worried about the others. So she enjoyed the tea and had a conversation with Lucy, who still didn't seam to trust her completely but she was at least speaking properly to her.

"So you used to be taller?" Lucy asked the smaller Spartan as she drank her tea while being wrapped up in blankets.

"Yeah, it's my Semblance, I get taller and can summon the armor" She explained, wishing Seven was around to back up her story, but the AI was staying well and truly in deep working mode and not coming out.

"That's... oddly specific, I didn't think Jorge could do it." She said, looking over at the other Spartan.

"He doesn't, his armor works for him without needing one." Six said, taking a sip from her tea. She couldn't say she was a fan of the flavour; But that didn't matter, it was warm and she wasn't.

"So he isn't going to turn into a teenager on me?" She asked, a sly smile on her face as she looked over at Jorge.

"Nope, What you see is what you get." Jorge said with a laugh as he drowned the substance in his mug (Six suspected it was something to do with the accent, he sounded like a Birt, maybe he was?"

"Well it was nice to meat you miss Six, I hope you can find the rest of your friends." Lucy said, clearly less bothered by her as she finished her drink.

"Erm... Yeah, I have something to ask, I need some help..."

The Polar bear Fuanus (Six had worked up the courage to ask while they where drinking) Looked at her.

"With what? We have enough trouble with that damn albino Griffin, let alone going on a frigging wild goose chase." She said simply. Clearly surprised as Six laughed.

"Oh so that's what that bastard was, no I'm not asking for some help with a wild goose chase, I need some help with a rescue mission. I was with Carter and Kat looking for Jorge, we got attacked and the ship went down, I need to find the wreck, I know their alive, Seven got a read on their life signs but I have no idea where to look." Six explained, really not convinced she was winning Lucy over.

"I don't know... it could be to hard, I mean if you don't know..."

Six spoke up:

"We also have Winter Schnee of that Atlas Special forces on board and she is probably capable of getting help to deal with that Griffin you mentioned."

That did it, They set of into the snow within the hour (Apter getting Six better winter gear to wear on top of the ODST armor) Jorge armed with his Chain gun (Seven deserves some credit with the amount of ammo crates she sent him with) Six with her hammer (Loaded with Burn crystals so it wouldn't freeze up, a common trick by Atlesian Huntresses) and Lucy with her weapon. A set of mechanical claws strapped to her wrist and palms, loaded with Dust infused blades that doubled up as climbing tools (they had two inch long metal spikes built into the fingers and the sole of her boots.)

"You sure you can see through that bucket?" She asked, looking at Six's ODST helmet. Noting that the Woman wasn't complaining about Jorges she looked at her.

"Yes, yes I am." She said simply, convinced she could prove the helmets worth in the field.

"Well we'll see." She said simply, walking out and taking the lead as the search began.


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34 Okay screw this thing!

Six was sure of it now. She really hated snow. Yesterdays blizzard may have blown over but the resulting snow was still around and it was making navigating a complete pain.

"Are you sure this is the right tunnel?" Six asked as she helped melt the snow, opening the ammo section on her Gravity hammer to expose the Burn Dust Crystals and use the heat they emitted to try and melt the snow.

"Yes, I've lived here most of my life, I know my way around." Lucy said, giving Six stink eye as she moved her claws nearer to the snow to speed up the melting process.

"Sorry but these tunnels all look the same to me, it's like being back on that damn island without the AI giving me a map." Six said, ramming her hammer into the snow, figuring that would work faster.

"Is that thing waterproof?" Lucy asked as Six pulled the hammer out and stabbed it in again.

"Yes of course it is." Six shot back, figuring it would probably work, it was a high tech alien weapon, I it couldn't survive some water...

"Could you two stop fighting?" Jorge asked from behind as a gap that looked big enough to wriggle through was finally formed.

"Don't ask me questions I can't answer honestly." Lucy said simply as she moved in to the gap.

"Erm, are you sure about that?" Six asked just as she got stuck.

"No, no I'm not." She said simply, trying to pull herself further forward, but she was sadly thwarted in her efforts.

"Can you get back out?" Jorge asked with concern as he looked at her. (Six noticed he was... enjoying the view, to say the least)

"Erm, no, don't think I can..." She admitted glumly as she gave a final defeated wiggle.

Six looked at the sight, a part of her wanted to laugh at the sight, another part of her thought she should help...

Then an idea came to Six, she turned to Jorge and said.

"Well dude, you going to help her?"

Jorge looked at Six.

"She's stuck, what do you want me to do, pull her back?" He asked. Six shook her head and beamed, knowing what would follow would be both funny and helpful.

"No, get her through, give her a push, if we're lucky she'll make a gap big enough for you to get through and she can pull you out." Six said, waiting for Jorge to work out where he'd have to push to get her through.

"Good idea Six, I 'll... Ah."

 _I think he got it._

 _Yeah, I think he did._

"Well go on, she can't say blocking the exit all day." Six said, smirking under her helmet as Jorge nodded and pushed hard on each buttock.

"Jorge please tell me that's you!" Lucy squeaked as Jorge pushed harder.

"Yes, sorry about this, urgh, How did you get so tight!?"

"I don't know in, put so effort in I can't just lye here all day!"

"I'm going, anyway I'd hurt you if I did it too fast!"

"I can take it, I've been in tighter situations than this!"

"Urgh, I'm, urgh, trying!" Jorge cried, struggling to get the Polar Bear girl free from her prison of ice.

"Come on, I think I just moved!" She said as she slowly shifted.

"Good!" Jorge cried as Lucy eventually popped free.

"You okay?" Six asked, looking through the hole to look at Lucy who was struggling to her feet.

"Yeah, I'm good, although I suggest we make the whole bigger before Jorge attempts to squeeze through."

"Yes!" Jorge said instantly, clearly not a fan of the idea of being pushed through the hole himself. Giggling Six set about melting the hole bigger.

…

"Okay, now we're all out..." Lucy said, looking slyly at Jorge (who'd still managed to get stuck) "...Its time for me to do my thing." She said, running towards a tree and vaulting up it at maximum speed, reaching the top in less than a minute.

"Won't the snow have burred her ship?" Six asked. Lucy laughed.

"Yes it would have, but if they are still alive..."

"They are." Six snapped back.

"...Then they'll have had to clear the snow and make camp, and I tend to find people camping are usually very easy to spot. For example can you see that smoke trail over there?" She asked, pointing off into the distance. Six rolled her eyes.

"I can't see anything except trees from down here." She said, gesturing towards the forest currently blocking her view.

"Well then get up here!" She yelled. Six looked at Jorge; who shrugged, bent down and put his hands together to give her a boost up into the tree. (Lucy was about a foot taller than Six and could reach the first branch)

Six rolled her eyes and began scaling the tree, pulling herself up she stopped a few branches bellow Lucy and looked over to the smoke trail.

"You think that's them?" Six asked.

"Well it's either them or someone else trying to be found..." Lucy was interrupted as a flare shot of from the smoke trail.

"I know them, Ruby insisted the suit have them!" Six yelled, fist pumping the air, and proply falling out of the tree.

 _Thwump!_

"They made it!" Six yelled from the small crater she was lying in.

"You want a hand?" Jorge asked as Six struggled to stand again.

"No I got this!" Six yelled, finally extracting herself as Lucy crashed down next to her, promptly burring Six in snow again as she kicked up a ton of snow.

"Thanks." Six muttered as she stood up.

"You're welcome, now lets go before something bad finds them; If I could see it then I'm sure a Grimm could; you really don't want the Griffin finding them." Lucy said as they set off through the trees.

"Hang on, Griffin? You mentioned that yesterday, what exactly are we dealing with?" Six asked as the trek began.

"Literally a giant albino griffin Grimm. It's a big bastard, wing span of about sixty feet. Five hundred tones of muscles, more weapons embedded in it's back than anything I've ever seen, a razor sharp beak that can smash through mountains, it literally did that at one point. Point is its a tough bastard and the biggest threat to Crate around, if we can kill it we might be able to survive a trip back to Atlas! I don't know, just once this things dead we can get something out of this! But until then, we're stuck. Stuck in a town running out of food and unable to survive if another attack comes." Lucy explained darkly as she walked ahead of Six.

"Don't worry, I'll get help to kill this thing once we've found them." Six said. Lucy looked down at her.

"You really think they'll bother helping a group of Faunus? Trust me they wont." The Polar Bear Girl muttered darkly.

"What about the other kingdoms? Do you really think none of them would help?" Jorge asked. Six shrugged.

"I don't know, the worlds kinda shitty to Faunus, the only place that would defiantly help is Menagerie, and they don't have the resource's to deal with this shit." Six explained.

"Urgh." Jorge growled, Six nodded.

"Yeah I know the feeling." Six nodded. Lucy turned to look to her.

"What you ever had to deal with racism?" she asked in a sarcastic tone which clearly indicated she didn't think so.

"I personally have never been a victim, the closest I've come to dealing with racism is beating the shit out of some ass holes picking on Velvet." Six explained.

"Wait, you did what?" Lucy asked, sure she'd misheard. Her experience at Atlas had involved a lot of people walking by and ignoring the problem.

"Oh right, a bunch of dicks where harassing her in the library. So I, lets see, hit one in the head, the next two in the guts and kneed him in the groin and head butted his face. Oh and I gave him one last kick for good measure."

Lucy looked at the Spartan, she could be making that up, but if she had a problem she would have brought it up impatiently. And, it was hard to tell but her body language indicated she wasn't lying.

"Well that was good of you." She said quietly, looking down at the Spartan who was fiddling around for her Scroll.

"Yeah, she and her girlfriend are awesome!" Six said, showing her a picture she'd taken at the Ice cream bar a few weeks ago. Six was taking the picture and thus was angled weirdly to fit them all in frame, Coco was grinning widely with her arm wrapped around Velvet who had stolen her shades and was doing the same thing, although she was using her free hand to do bunny ears behind Coco's head.

"They look cute together." Lucy said, smiling as she saw the picture, then noticed the other figure in the picture.

"Who's that?" She asked, pointing at Penny who wasn't smiling, she appeared to be halfway through saying something (The actual thing she was saying at the time was: Why are we saying cheese?) and was looking adorably confused.

"Oh that's Penny, she's my roommate at Beacon." Six explained, smiling as she looked down on the orange haired android,

"She looks cute." Jorge said. Six nodded serenely.

"Yeah, she is..."

 _We said that out-loud didn't we._

 _Yup._

 _FUCK!_

"Someone's smitten." Lucy said, grinning as she looked down at the Spartan.

"A bit." Six admitted, smiling as she swiped the screen. One image had Penny with ice cream on her nose which had been to cute to not immortalize, one showed her trying on Six's Beacon uniform, actually there where a lot of those; also one with her reaching down, form behind, in a mini skirt...

"Okay not seeing that one!" Six yelled, slamming the power button as fast as she could.

Lucy and Jorge both burst out laughing (Apparently Six hadn't been quite quick enough to hider the pictures contents.) They wouldn't stop giving Six a hard time about it until they finally found what they where looking for.

Unfortunately they weren't the only people to have found the found the wreck and the subsequent camp the survivors had set up, well actually they where the only people to have found the camp. The gigantic white Griffin on the other hand...

Lucy was not kidding about the things size, it was insanely huge, it must have just caught the edge of the ship with it's talons to do something so small as ripping the entire back end of the ship off. The thing was diving on the camp.

Six didn't think, she ran in; Her legs blurring as she accelerated, a purple glow formed around her.

Six jumped and within a second her Mjolnir armor back on her body as she flew at the creature, slamming the hammer into it's body.

The burn dust infused swing didn't do a thing. The Grimm looked down at her, it reared back and roared. A scream that vibrated throughout Six's entire body as it raised a massive talon to swipe her off the face of existence as casually as one pushed their junk of a desk.

Six turned to run, the snow was making it hard until familiar Gatling gun fire was heard. Six looked over, Jorge had adopted a gunning stance and was firing on the creature. No matter how tough you are you can't ignore more bullets being forced into you than the gun seamed physically capable of holding.

The Grimm turned to look at Jorge as Lucy darted in and grabbed Six, pulling her out of the snow and throwing her over her shoulders. Sprinting between the beasts legs and towards the wreck.

Jorge kept on firing while the pair darted under the makeshift wall (Some canvas Winter had been hauling for reasons she wasn't one hundred percent sure of) And into the ship.

Six's eyes lit up under her helmet as she saw the group she'd been looking for.

"Guys!" She cried, diving at the Spartans and pulling them into a hug, loosening one arm so she could send a salute at Winter and wave at Weiss.

"Six!" the group yelled out, before looking at Lucy.

"Who's she?" Weiss asked, looking the Faunus up and down.

"Right, Guys this is Lucy, Lucy this is the group we where looking for. Jorge is outside giving us some covering fire, we need to get out now!"

"But where are we going to go?" Winter asked as she grabbed her sword up off the ground. Gesturing for her sister to do the same.

"Theirs a town nearby, it's not perfect but it's got big walls, we can at least come up with some kind of plan their." Six said, before looking at Lucy who seamed unsure.

"I don't know, if that thing follows us Crate can't survive."

"We can't survive if we don't get out of here!" Kat pointed out, Six noted she had a bandage wrapped around her head, actually they all looked worse for wears. Carter seamed to have gotten of the best out of all of them with just a plaster on one cheek. Winter had a her right hand bandaged up and Weiss' eye was covered by the large bandage wrapped around it.

"She's right, even if we don't go to this town we can't stay here." Carter said, before looking to Lucy. "Can we go any wear else, is their a safe spot somewhere?"

Lucy thought for a second before saying:

"Well... There's Crystal Cove; provided we can get in the tunnels we should be able to get away without it being able to find us or Crate..."

"Okay, we're doing that, lets move it people!" Carter yelled, climbing into Six's mech suit (Six insisted on bringing it anywhere dangerous and as such had insisted it be loaded into he back of Winters ship before they left.)

Six nodded as everyone picked up their weapons (Kat was carrying Carters rifle seeing as he had no use for it and it was a bad idea to not be able to switch on the fly between ranged and melee if you where fighting on Remanent.) and got ready to run. Just before they left Carter approached Six.

"You found the big guy?" He asked, his face betraying the fact he didn't quite believe it, Six grinned.

"You can say hi once we're safe, now come on lets go!" She yelled.

Lucy was the first to go as they ran towards the cave, most of the group following her to try and reach the right tunnel.

The terrain was treacherous and required a lot of work to navigate successfully, this was hard enough when it was peaceful but add a giant monster chasing you to that and it became dam near impossible.

The main problem was they had no way of getting cover, the tree's didn't work, the thing just smashed through them with ease and it was taking all their effort just to stay ahead of the thing, so no one could turn back to fire of some shots to try and hold the thing back.

Six now knew how the grunts felt while facing a Spartan, she almost felt bad fore them.

Six ran faster and faster, they had to do something, Six scanned around and saw something; it probably wouldn't work but it was the only chance they had.

"This way!" She yelled, veering of to the left towards a clearing.

"Are you crazy!" Lucy yelled at full volume, Carter and Kat didn't say a thing, they followed Six, the others kept on running as fast as they could.

"Go, we should be able to do this!" Six yelled, skidding to a stop in the clearing in front of the one surviving tree.

"What are we doing!?" Kat yelled, looking at six who was crouched, ready to run.

"We need to move as soon as that thing dives." Six said, pointing at the Griffin which had risen to the sky, looking down at them with it's cruel merciless eyes.

"What are you trying to do!" Carter yelled before it headed down, diving at incredible speed.

"Hoping it's going to fast to change course!" Six yelled as she got ready for it to move.

"Now!" She yelled, sprinting away ten seconds before the griffin hit the ground. Kat and Carter followed as the thing hit the ground...

… And drove it's head into the one tree and ground.

"Did we get it?" Kat asked.

"No, keep running!" Six yelled, speeding up to catch up with the others.

"But we killed it!" Carter yelled. Six shook her head.

"That head plate on that those things are way to thick for that to have reached anything vulnerable, we cracked it and dazed the thing, nothing else!"

"And how is that helpful!?" Kat yelled.

"Can you run at full speed with a concussion?" Six yelled back in response, a silly grin on her face underneath the helmet despite the danger.

The three of them soon caught up with others.

"You're alive!?" Jorge and Lucy yelled at the same time. (although not in the same way, Jorge yelled it with relief and Lucy with shock.

"Seams you do possess some degree of skill." Winter said as Weiss beamed.

"Yep!" Six yelled back as they entered the tunnel. Finally able to slow down and catch there breath.

"That, was either very brave or very stupid." Weiss said, looking at Six, who was bent over and beaming happily.

"Can't I be both?" She asked, pulling her helmet to reveal her dumb grin underneath.

"I'd rather you stayed alive." The other members of Noble Team said in sync.

"So what? Don't be useful?" Six asked; her head tilted to the side as she looked at them.

"I think what there trying to say is we missed you and have only just found you again, we'd rather that didn't happen again." Jorge explained. Six snorted.

"Erm, if you remember correctly I found you." Six said, beaming happily. Then she looked to Carter and Kat.

"Speaking of which, you two; hug him, now."

"What!" Jorge and Lucy yelled out in sync.

"It feels good, trust me, its a good moment of reunion." Six said simply.

"I'm not doing that." Carter said simply.

"I will chicken." Kat said, before throwing her arms around him. "Big guy!" She cried out, pulling the Spartan into the best hug her small frame would allow.

"I missed you too Kat, and you to Sir." He said, sending a salute to Carter, who nodded and set one back. (In retrospect the fact he was wearing the mech suit was probably the reason he wasn't hugging Jorge, or maybe it was because he was male, Six didn't know or care.)

"Good to have you back Noble." Carter shot back as they left the caves, now in Crystal cove.

Unlike Crate this place wasn't named literally. While true the area was just a small cove; it wasn't actually made of crystal. It was actually made of ice, tons and tons ice spiralling beautifully up into the sky, crawling over the cliffs and the ground. However the thing looked beautiful, the way the light bounced was immensely like Crystal.

"Whoa." Six gasped, looking around at the beauty around her. Until she noticed something. Something with actual crystals on it's back.

It was climbing over the top of the cliffs, jumping from wall to wall before it eventually stopped in front of them and rose to it's full hight.

The thing was huge, and Six knew immediately what it was.

It was three meters tall, a tangled dented mess of blue armor sprouted from the creature which was comprised of many small red-ish brown worms wriggling around. However it wasn't what Six thought of when she imagined these creatures, it was covered with bright green glowing crystals that emerged and stuck out from its entire body. The plasma canon on it's arm was also changed, it now looked even more dangerous than before.

The mutated Hunter advanced forward faster than anyone would have thought possible. It grabbed Six around the throught.

"Don't fire!" Six gasped, knowing full well that she'd be in the way. The thing looked at her before it's head moved, the eyes glowed and inside the groups head a single thought could be heard, their own drowned out by the Hunter.

 _Where is he!_


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35 I was not ready for this

 _Where is he!_

The thought drowned out every other thought from Six's head. It was amazingly loud; no other thoughts could make themselves heard as the bellowing echo of the Hunter shook through her head.

No one else was handling things well, Weiss and Winter had crashed to the ground, Jorge and Lucy where doubled over, holding their heads in pain. Out of all of them Carter was probably handling the pain the best out of all of them; having only his eyes shut. Kat was taking the second place; only wincing slightly.

Six struggled in the Hunter's grip as it moved her face nearer it's own.

 _You know where he is._

"Who, _Ack!_ " Six gasped as it's grip got tighter. It looked at her, almost as if it was carefully studying her.

 _You know who I want._

"Merlot!" Six gasped, the thing let her go as she she crashed to the ground, struggling to bring in breath again as the Hunter looked at her.

 _Where is he._

It asked again, however it wasn't painful this time, it was asked more as if it was speaking to her.

"Six, should we...?" Jorge asked, raising the gun. Six shook her head violently.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no..." Six said, not wanting to fight a stronger than normal Hunter while that Griffin was around. Six turned to look at the thing again.

"You want Doctor Merlot?" She asked carefully, slowly backing away just to be safe.

 _Yes._

"I don't know where he is."

The Hunter went to move, so Six spoke as fast as possible.

"I know who might!" She blurted before it could reach her.

 _Will you tell me?_

"Six are you seriously going to trust that thing?" Carter asked. Six couldn't answer, she stood up slowly.

"He's right..." She said slowly, looking at the beast in front of her. " …Can you prove to me you're trustworthy?" She asked as the Hunter started moving towards her.

 _You will never trust my kind fully._

"Well yes, that tends to happen when you destroy everything I care about." Six said, looking at the Hunter, who she suspected was male, the mental voice sounded like that.

 _I understand._

"Wait you do?" Six asked incredulously, this wasn't how religious zealots where meant to act.

 _Yes._

"How...?" All the Spartans asked at the same time. (Drawing some odd looks from everyone who wasn't)

 _We did not join the Covenant willingly, it was the only option._

"So what changed? Why is it now okay to not kill everything?" Six asked sceptically. The Hunter looked at her, confusion evident from her body language.

 _You know the answer._

"No I really don't." Six said simply, looking at the creature who did something which undeniably looked like a snort of laughter.

 _Why do you not act like a demon?_

"A what?" Weiss asked, looking at the conversation in front of her; thinking the only way it could get weirder was if Zwei was taking part in the conversation.

 _A demon, like your friend._

The Hunter communicated, gesturing towards Jorge with it's shield.

Six glanced towards him, then slowly asked.

"Do you mean a Spartan?"

 _That is your word for it._

"Oh, what do you mean by not act like one, I'm still a Spartan!" She cried out desperately, looking around: Weiss and Winter had no reaction, they had no idea how a Spartan was supposed to act. Carter was refusing to meet Six's eyes and Kat, well Kat was giggling.

"I am!" Six yelled desperate, causing Kat to double over.

"Kat don't be mean." Jorge said firmly, Before looking to Six.

"I'm not going to say you're not a Spartan anymore, but you defiantly don't act the same way you did back on Reach." He said, his tone indicating he was trying to be kind to her.

"Okay you have a point..." Six muttered darkly, before looking to the Hunter. "...But I still don't understand by what you mean, what happened to you?"

 _The forerunners didn't save him._

"Save who?" Winter asked carefully, it was her first time around an alien and as far as she knew the first time one had been willing to talk to a human instead of trying to murder them.

 _My Bond Brother is gone._

"What happened?" Weiss asked, sympathy in her voice. Six scowled, she wasn't sure how she felt about people feeling bad for the Covenant...

 _I am not Covenant, they didn't save my Bond Brother and the Forerunners refused to help us, the gate would not open, we did not survive, this word does not have them. The forerunners are not watching over us, there is no worth in the faith._

"Hold on because you now know it's bullshit your just gonna ignore everything they hard weird into you? Sorry but I call bull." Six said, scowling at the creature who looked down at her.

 _That man tortured me, he killed my Bond Brother..._

"Sorry what is a Bond Brother? Also theirs an Alien in front of me, is anyone going to explain what the hell is going on?!" Lucy cried out, gesturing at the three meter tall creature in front of her.

 _It is not important right now._

"I disagree!" Lucy yelled, gesturing towards the Hunter again.

 _Well it doesn't matter. Demons:_

The Hunter thought; turning it's head to look at all of the Spartans.

 _You will never trust me, however I have to find Merlot, he must pay for what he has done; I will help with your fight if you give me the information you have._

"So, Merlot killed your... Bond Brother, hang on sorry about this; what is a Bond Brother?"

 _My hive grew to big, we split, we where partners, we where inseparable, and he killed him; he didn't give him a fight, he was tortured to death, this will not stand. He has to pay._

"You killed all my friends, why the hell should I care if you're hurting?"

 _I did not do that, The Covenant killed your kind and you killed the Covenant in return. I have not done anything personally to you nor have you to me. Will you help me or will I have to force you to?_

"What do you propose?" Six said, really not wanting to fight this thing, Hunters where dangerous normally; this one with Merlot's enhancements was probably capable of killing all of them without breaking a sweat.

 _You have information on where he is, at least more than me If I help you kill the creature hunting you I want you to tell me everything you know._

"All I know is the person who might know where he is, that's not a lot to give you." Six said, not wanting to piss the Hunter off.

 _It is enough and more than I have currently._

It responded simply.

Six thought for a second.

"I don't think we have any better options, however I want to talk it over..."

"I say yes." Lucy said, really just wanting the Griffin dead, she didn't care who the hell she had to work with so long as that thing was dead and her village could get away.

"I think it would be for the best." Winter said simply.

"I, I think it's the best option we have, that thing will kill us without help." Weiss said, a bit more on edge as she had heard from Six what the Covenant had done, and what these Hunters where capable of.

"I don't like it." Kat said.

"I don't think we have a choice, I suspect he'll kill us if we don't agree to help." Carter finished, glancing towards the Hunter who shrugged.

 _He is not wrong._

"Oh great, our future ally is blackmailing us with death threats." Six said, rolling her eyes as she turned to Jorge.

"We don't have a choice, and maybe Six don't be rude towards the giant that can kill us."

 _He is also not wrong._

"Great, just great." Six said, rolling her eyes as she turned back to the Hunter.

"Okay, I guess we're working together Mr Hunter guy... do you have a name?"

 _Yes: Frak Ignus Norte._

"Frak Ignus Norte...?" Six asked, rolling the words around carefully in her mouth before slowly asking: "Can I just call you Fin?"

 _You may call me what you like small demon, we are on a new world without the old systems, we may do what we like._

"Hold on, that's why you aren't trying to kill us? We're not in UNSC space?"

 _Yes. We have no way back and thus it is not worth holding onto beliefs that will not come true here._

"So you've concluded the Covenant's beliefs are bullshit?" Kat asked slyly from the side as Six snorted with laughter.

 _We are Mgalekgolo, we had no choice but to join, we do not except their beliefs as true and thus less likely to hold them before we got here. Now there is no defence, they are wrong._

"I, how... sure, why not! Come on everyone, lets go kill a giant Griffin!" Six cried out, throwing her arms into the air and turning to leave before the Hunter stopped her by throwing his shield in front of her.

 _To go without a plan would be foolish._

"Sorry Six I agree with the Hunter." Weiss said simply.

"And I agree with my Sister." Winter said in response to Weiss. Six rolled her eyes.

"Okay Fin, do you have any ideas on what to do?" Six asked, turning to look at the creature.

 _Yes, yes I do._

…

"So, just to confirm the success of this entire plan rests on Fin?" Six asked from her spot in one of the many trees, scanning around for their target.

"Yes, now stick to the plan Noble." Carter shot back over the radio. Six scowled as she looked around.

 _Am I the only one who remembers what they did?_

 _Seams to be._

 _I mean, they burned Reach, how many good men did we lose to those bastards?_

 _A lot I suspect._

 _Yes exactly! Millions, why are we now trusting this thing!_

 _I dunno._

 _We shouldn't be using this plan! It puts all of us at risk! I bet it just doesn't want to get it's hands dirty killing us so it's planing to get that Grimm to do it for him!_

 _The plan puts him in the most danger._

 _Exactly, wait what!?_

 _Fin is in danger more than we are in this plan._

 _You're on his side!_

 _I'm just saying!_

 _No, no, no, no, no... NO! Why are you defending that creature, do you remember what it did!_

 _Yes I do._

 _Then stop defending it!_

 _So you can do what? Keep on hating him forever? Kill a sentiant being who seams to want to help._

 _For the love of, **It's a fucking hunter! Part of the Covenant for fucks sake!**_

 _Not anymore it's not._

 _ **Shut up and keep watch!**_

 _I thought you of all people would be sympathetic to someone who watched their closest friends die._

 _ **I said shut up!**_

It was then that Six saw it, The massive Griffin was turning in the air, aiming straight for her.

"It's here, making a beeline for me." Six said calmly, diving from her spot and running towards the others.

"Okay, Jorge, Carter get ready with the covering fire, we need to herd it towards Fin." Winter said over the radio.

"Got it." They said in unison back.

Six ran, her semblance flaring up as she grew to Seven foot; her strides extending so she could move faster; for this plan to have any chance of working she had to move quickly.

The Griffin wasn't striking yet, if it dived now it would smash through the thick trees and after it's last encounter with Six it wasn't taking that chance again. It was in the sky and could clearly see the exposed area just ahead in front of the cliff wear it could make the final dive, snatching up its prey and ending this hunt quickly.

Thankfully it was focusing so much on Six it didn't see Jorge and Cater getting ready to fire on it.

The shots exploded out, driving the beast to the ground, just missing the lavender Spartan as it crashed down in front of her.

"Weiss go!" Six yelled over her radio, The white haired girl sprang from her hiding place, moving as if she was ice skating on a series of glyphs that appeared on the ground in front of her.

In a second she was in front of the creature; driving her rapier into the ground in front of it. A huge spike of ice flew up, trapping the creatures entire front end in the ground.

The Griffin did not react well to this as it wriggled for a second to try and get free. Not that it was going to have to worry about that for much longer because the last part of Fin's plan was ready to kick in.

The Hunter advanced forward, seeing it's plan nearing completion her prepared to finish the Grimm.

He took a few steps back before running forward and jumping of the edge of the cliff.

Fin's plan was based on how the Mgalekgolo had been defeated and forced to join the Covenant. You could be as strong as you liked on the ground. However, if you could get an advantage and attack from somewhere you're opponent couldn't reach you...

Hence why it was diving of the cliff, it already weighed several tons, was sporting a shield weighing two tons and had self generating explosives growing out it's back. It sped up, firing of explosions to push himself to terminal velocity, diving down faster and faster.

It slammed into the creature and kept going. The hunter stopped on the snow and used it's cannon to blast out the rest of the head with it's cannon. From the smoking remains of the head it emerged.

It's hawking figure was truly intimidating from the inside of the giant dead Grimm.

"I am so glad he's on our side." Lucy said as she looked at the remains, a certain respect for the Alien in front of her as it walked towards Six. Who had removed her helmet so it could see her face.

 _Will you trust me now Noble Six?_

Six looked up at the Hunter, it was weird, a certain burning hatred was resonating in her as she looked at the thing; however, it had helped out and the plan did rely on him, she was safe and so was everyone else.

"I think I have to." Six said simply back to the thing.

 _Will you tell me what you know?_

"I will get you a meeting with Ozpin once Crates resident's are back safe in Atlas."

 _The agreement was I help you kill the thing._

"I can't get you a meeting until we're back in Vale anyway and I'm not going back until there safe so you might as well help to make sure we don't run off." Six said back coolly. The Hunter looked at her.

 _Very well, change the agreement again and I will not be pleased._

"Don't worry I wont." Six said simply, she really did not want to fight this thing. Then again she didn't want to be around that thing, let alone fight it.

 _I sense you don't like me Six._

Six looked around, no one else was reacting.

 _Just think a response, I'm only talking to you._

 _Okay then Mr Hunter, I don't like your kind, I really frigging hate you._

 _I know, I've had access to your thoughts._

 _Then can we go?_

 _Yes, although I know full well what you're thinking._

 _Then you know I hate you._

 _I know everything your thinking, even what you wont admit._

 _Can we go! We're just staring at each other and everyone thinks we're insane._

 _I know, Merlot's enchantments have made my physic ability's better than they where, it used to be me and my Bond Brother, now it is everyone around me._

 _Then why did you need me to tell you anything?_

 _We must go._

 _Wait!_

Fin didn't listen, he was stomping off towards crate, the others where following and Six's brain was just left so full of thoughts Fin might as well have been screaming at her again.


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter 36 What wasn't said

High in a remote mountain range in an abandoned bunker left form the great war a meeting was taking place.

Inside a group of aliens sat opposite a group of Faunus, a floating black orb with long red tails was hovering in between the groups so the negotiations could be overseen.

"Explain to me how these things are any better than humanity." A man in a black suit said, staring at the Elite in front of him from behind his Grimm mask.

"You would do well to hold your tongue, Adam Taurus." The Elite shot back, his bulging muscles showing out form what was left of his burnt golden armour.

"I think..."

" **I think."** A voice called out from the orb, the air of power resonating form it was enough to silence both of the angry leaders. "That both of you should hold your tongues."

"Yes my lady." The Elite said, stepping out of his chair so he could bow to the orb.

"Kiss ass." Adam muttered darkly, only to regret that decision as a red Tendril sprang out and wrapped around Adams arm, jerking it down and slamming the man into the table.

"You would do well to learn so respect Adam. Continue to fail in this regard and I will not help you with your pathetic goals." The voice said, jerking him back to his feet again.

"Yes, Milady..." He forced out, scowling at the orb. The tentacles raised f the ground to slowly wrap around him.

"Oh Adam, it is so nice to see you, I always like talking to you, now, are your forces ready for the attack?"

"Yes."

"Good, Turak Vol..." She said, her orb turning to face the Elite in front of her, how moved back into his bow the second it faced him.

"My forces are ready and willing to fight Milady." He said, his head still aimed at the ground.

"Good, rise and move out, both of you." The orb said, floating out of the room and leaving as the forces moved out.

"I am confused Taurus, why do you ask for her help and disrespect her so?" Turak asked, looking at the Bull Faunus next to him.

"I need it, but she has done nothing to earn my respect; besides it's better than you treating her like a god, you idiotic..."

Adam was cut of as Turak slammed him into the wall so fast he couldn't react.

"You know nothing Human." He said coldly, he had seen her. She was not a pure godess, but she was Forerunner, he knew it, she was going to lead them on the great journey, their failure on Reach would be forgiven and they would ascend. He dropped the Bull Faunus. Leaving him struggling for breath on the floor as he scowled up at the retreating Elite.

"I sense someone else falling today." He muttered quietly from behind his mask.

…

The return to Atlas with the inhabitants of Crate had gone well enough, I mean it had mostly been just waiting for the airships but once that was done it was fine, most of them had homes to go to... and those who didn't had family in Menagerie; it wasn't perfect, most of the ones still in Atlas had lost their jobs; Even Lucy (who apparently Teached at Atlas) before had lost her position because she'd been gone for over a year.

So yeah... they where safe but most of them had no job... Six was... Depressed and had a feeling they might have been nicer to them if the settlers hadn't been Fuanus.

Still though she couldn't do anything and Jorge had invited Lucy to come to Vale with them (She apparently had family she wanted to see again, she'd already called them to confirm she was alive and say she wanted to introduce them to someone... appropriate given, well...)

…

"You're pregnant!" Jorge cried out, causing everyone else in the hotel lobby to whirl around and look at the pair.

"Yeah... turns out those lonely nights together might have had one or two minor consequences..." She said, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly

"Congrats Jorge, you're gonna be a daddy." Six said slyly to the big guy, who was freaking out somewhat.

...

Still though, they had Jorge, and two more people than Six had expected but whatever, Noble Team was almost back at full strength, just needed to find Emile. But before they could seek permission to go to find him Weiss needed to do something.

…

Six was waiting outside of the Schnee manor, Weiss had gone ina few hours ago to talk to her father in his office, Six had been asked to wait outside (Presumably because Weiss didn't want her using her hammer on her Father, Which Fin had annoyingly proven to be something Six was considering if he wouldn't agree to play ball.)

 _You're nervous._

Six scowled up at the Hunter, she really didn't want top talk to him again, but seeing as he was physic...

"What gave you that idea?" Six asked as she leant on the front gate of the Schnee manor.

 _I'm in your head._

"Of course you aren't." Six said simply as she looked at the creature.

 _You are worried about your friend._

"What's the point in telling me things I already know?" Six asked as the Hunter sat down next to her. She was still shorter than it and moved away form him.

 _Their is no point._

"Then why do it, why not go... literally anywhere else." Six said, gesturing in a random direction.

 _I won't have you running off._

"What, no I'd never do that." Six said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

 _You are an interesting creature Noble Six._

"What does that mean?" Six shot back as the Hunter turned to look at her.

 _You are a weird creature, you lye to someone you know can read your mind and you show your blatant hostility towards me._

"Give me a reason I shouldn't be?"

 _I'm not saying you don't think it's justified, Your not but I can see how you'd think that. I'm simply saying it's unusual to be so blatant about it. I rather thought you disliked people with those attitudes._

"Well then I guess I'm a hypocrite then." Six said simply, glancing up towards the manor that towered over her.

 _Yes you are._

"Why are you here!?" Six cried out, angrily turning to look at the thing.

 _I need to keep an eye on you._

"If you with the others then..."

 _I know you wont leave them behind._

"Of course you do." Six scowled, leaning back against the wall.

 _To answer your question however... I thought you might be interested in knowing what's going on in there._

"And why would you do that? Hoping to earn my trust? Become best friends because you helped me?"

 _It would be beneficial for us to work together..._

"Why!? You just want to kill Merlot, what the fuck is your plan after this is over?!" Six asked. Looking around at the Hunter who shurgged.

 _Their are others who need to be saved and I can do it._

"Well yay for you, I'll ask again, why the fuck do you want to get on my good side, why do you care, if we went head to head in a fight you'd kill me easily." Six said simply. The Hunter turned his head to look at her.

 _That is not true, you have killed my kind before on your own, you could kill me if you wanted._

"No I couldn't." Six said angrily.

 _You may believe what you want to believe; I see the truth._

"I'm sure you do." Six said, not believing whatever the hell this thing was saying.

 _Faunus._

"What?" Six asked, honestly confused as the Hunter looked at her.

 _I said what I need to, seeing them has effected you; whether you believe it or not._

"How does the oppression of a mostly innocent people translate to the literal genocide monsters?"

 _That depends on how you see me... Move!_

Suddenly The Hunter dived, grabbing Six and shoving his shield into the ground in front of them.

"What the!" Six yelled, until her ears picked up a familiar sound, the sound of a Particle Beam Rifle being fired.

"Who's shooting at us!"

 _Their not shooting at us, we aren't the targets here!_

"They shot at us!" Six yelled as the Hunter let go of his shield and turned to look at the gate to the mansion.

 _They saw an opportunity and they took it. But there not here for us._

"Then who do they want!? Who ever are they?!" Six cried as Fin Charged up his plasma canon from behind his shield.

 _A Hybrid faction of White Fang and Covenant!_

"There working together!?"

 _It seams so, now come on,m I know the target, we need to keep the Schnee's safe!#_

"Their after Weiss!?" Six cried out, suddenly terrified for her friend.

 _There after all of them, now come on we need to get them out before the sniper stops shooting at us!_

"Okay!" Six said, her semblance flaring up as she was wrapped in her Mjolnir suit again as Fin fired of his shot, destroying the gate.

 _Run ahead, I'll keep you safe._

"Okay!" Six yelled, not looking back as she reached for her hammer. The mansions front doors where approaching her fast, she swung faster.

The hammer sent a fiery explosion out (Six hadn't had time to reset the Dust cartridge.) that sent the doors flying. Still burning in the corner Six ran in.

The Schnee mansion was just as grand on the inside as it was on the outside and like before Six hated it, it was probably because Six was used to Beacon but this place felt... Empty.

Well it did before Six heard the familiar roar of a squadron of Banshee's.

Running fast Six sprinted up the stairs as the ships began to fire on the mansion, destroying the outer walls in a volley of green plasma.

"Weiss! Winter! Guys where are you!" Six yelled as she charged through the mansion, frequently having to duck or jump over debris as she ran.

 _There on the upper floors! Get to them fast, their entering the mansion!_

"Fin! Fin where are you!"

 _Getting back up, I can't fight everything here, find the Schnee's and keep them safe!_

"So I'm on my own!"

 _You work well on you're own, find them and get out!_

"I'm on it!" Six yelled as she darted into a room with the Schnee crest on the door.

"So Sorry Ilia, but your services' are no longer required." A man said, he was wearing the garb of a White Fang Lieutenant and he had a gun pointed at someone.

Six didn't have anytime to think, she swung her hammer and hit the man in the neck at full force. He must have been in a fight before then because his Aura was gone. His neck snapped like a twig and he was flung into the wall, his body falling with a lifeless flump.

"Are you okay?" Six asked, turning towards the person he assumed to be Ilia. Only being slightly surprised that the girl was bright blue with day-glow green hair.

"Yeah, yes..." She said, terror in her face as she looked up at the Seven foot Spartan.

"What's going on, why was he trying to kill you?" Six asked as the Girl flared in anger, her skin going from blue to red in a split second.

"I don't know! I did everything they asked!" She cried out in anger as she looked at the dead Lieutenant.

"Everything they... Wait you're White Fang!?" Six cried out, looking at the girl who flashed backl to blue and nodded.

"Yes, but I never hurt anyone, I, well in..."

"I don't care, what's going on!" Six said, feeling bad for yelling as the girl jerked back, tears starting to form in her eyes.

"I, I don't know! All he said was the plan changed!" Ilia cried, looking around, desperate to find a way out, but the Seven foot tall Spartan was blocking the only exit.

"Then what was the plan?" Six asked, retrieving the White Fang Generals gun from the ground, looking it over she saw it was a UNSC pistol, she still hated the things but it was better than nothing ranged.

"Well I was trying to see if the manor was vulnerable to attack or not, I'd just sent the conclusion that it wasn't when they showed up..." The girl explained. Six nodded.

"Then the alliance with the Covenant must be fairly new... But why try to kill you?"

"He said they had no place for a coward..." Ilia muttered darkly, her skin going form blue back to what Six suspect was it's natural tone, she looked nice, her tanned skin and dark red hair worked well together and she was kind of cute...

"What did he mean by coward?" Six asked, moving towards the door, they'd spent to long in this room already and they where basically sitting ducks where they were.

"I don't like hurting people... Guess they finally got tired of that..."

"Well then you're okay in my books, now come on, help me get my friends out... and possibly their other relations, I don't really care... Anyway help me get them out of this mess and I we can skip the whole White Fang Spy thing."

Ilia looked at Six like she was crazy.

"I, what, why would you do that!?" Ilia cried, pretty sure it wasn't standard practise for people to just ignore the fact someone used to be a spy and simply continue on as if nothing happened.

"Well one: I really need help here, I have literally no idea where the fuck I'm going and I really need to find Jacque Schnee's office, Two: I think you're kind of cute and Three: Do you want to be arrested?" Six asked simply as she offered her hand to the girl.

"I, I don't know... I don't really trust humans and I really don't want to save a Schnee." She said, six looked at her.

"So what's your plan? Walk out the front door, this place is crawling with Gaurds and hostile enemy's, all of which will shoot at you by the way, stick with me and we can have each others backs, I'm kind of lost here, I'm guessing as a Spy you know the way around?" Six said, grinning as Ilia looked up at her in confusion.

"Why...?"

"Why not? it's not like you're my only Faunus friend; I think Blake and Velvet would kill me if I didn't help..."

"Blake!" Ilia cried, Six span around lightning fast to look at her.

"You know her?" Six asked as the Chameleon girl grabbed a weird spiked gun thing of the ground.

"Yes, now come on, you wanted to find Jacques office right?" She said as she pushed herself off the ground.

"Yup, that's where Weiss said she'd probably be talking to him, take the lead, I'll have your back."


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter 37 Fight through the manor

"So Weiss, out of pure curiosity, why did you decide to waste my time with this visit?" Jacques Schnee asked from behind his desk, scowling up at his daughter.

Weiss scowled back, she was done taking this man's crap and today was going to prove it... Mostly because not only was she going to prove it but she also had a plan B.

"I came because I have something to tell you." She said coldly, looking down at the man. Although she had wanted to do this she also had to admit that she's chosen to go to Beacon primarily because it meant three years of her life without him, still she was here and she was ready.

"Well spit it out, I haven't got all day." He said, not even looking her in the eye as he looked at his laptop screen.

"I know you haven't, although you could at least look at me." Weiss said, grabbing the top of the screen and slamming it down. She'd been waiting for him to have time to talk to her for at least an hour; she was going to be dammed if this crap went on.

"Weiss I don't know what you think you're doing but..."

 _Boooooom!_

The man's angry yell was cut of by a noise going off, the window behind Jacques exploded. The glass was rammed into him, his very limited Aura stopping him from getting seriously hurt; but he was knocked to the ground and most of the room was destroyed.

Thinking fast Weiss cast a gliph on the desk and flipping it over her father to protect him from the laser's blasts. (As big a jerk as he was he was still her father.)

"What the hell!" He yelled, looking around as Weiss forced the door open.

"I think the manors under attack." Weiss said, coolly looking around, seeing a purple jet hovering outside the window. The jet was clearly not human and based on the weapons she'd seen from her encounters with Six they where alien weapons.

Thinking fast she pulled Myrtenaster out from her side and swung it, sending a blast of dust towards the jet, destroying the wing and sending the jet flying down to the ground.

"We need to move." She said, darting out into the hallway, not bothering to look behind her too see if her father was following.

As they ran their was no denning two things, one Jacques was following Weiss and two: the mansion was undeniably under attack by aliens... and the White Fang.

The two factions had moved in initially by air and fired on most of the exterior, however they had now moved into the building on foot with hand held weaponry, all of which seamed to be plasma based and was slowly blasting holes all over the manor.

"How dare those wretched Faunus!" Jacque yelled as the pair darted in and out the mansion.

"It's almost as if they have a problem with the way you run the company." Weiss shot back coldly, not turning to look at her father as she drove her sword through a small alien, standing only a few feet with a large metal pack on it's back.

"Well that's insane." He said simply.

Weiss turned to scowl at him.

"No it's really not." She shot back, a note of menace in her voice as she spoke. Blake had told her about her days in the White Fang, the raids they'd done on Dust mines, the things overworked workers had morphed into because of Dust... It wasn't nice and Weiss trusted her friend a lot more than him at this point in time.

"Weiss, don't you talk to me like that." He said, reaching out to Grab his daughter, and getting the shock of his life as she wrenched her arm free, looking at him with a cold furry in her eyes.

"Now is not the time." She said, moving forward, she had to find Winter and get out of here.

"Don't you take that tone with me young lady!" He said again, grabbing her again with a much firmer grip.

 _Slash!_

Which loosened amazingly fast. He looked up, Weiss had span on the ball of her foot and struck his face with her sword.

" _Argh! You complete...!"_ He swore as his Daughter pointed her sword unnder his chin. Furry in her eyes.

"Father, allow me to inform you of a few things, One: I am a lesbian, that is why I came here today, to inform you of this fact. Two: We are under attack and they mean to kill us, the guard's aren't going to save us and I'm the only one with a weapon. Three: Your money isn't going to do a dam thing to help you here. Four: I am so completely and utterly done with your crap. So listen to me, I am going to get us out of here and you are going to listen or else I swear I will run this sword right through your pathetic abusive hide!" She yelled, the force in her voice so immense that her father was forced back, a look of shock on his face.

He looked at his daughter, lit from behind by the red glow of one of the many fires the Plasma had caused. She was standing tall and proud, her eyes said everything: 'I will never back down, not again'

He looked up at her, rage burning on his face.

"You... You..." He said, breathing hevily as his home burned around him. Weiss just smiled, looking down at him with a smug smile on her face. "... You can kiss the Schnee name behind you bitch!" He yelled, only to become even more enraged when Weiss laughed.

"Well I'm glad to finally have that out to the world." She said, reaching into the pouch she had on her belt to retrieve something.

"What are you about!" He yelled. His daughters complete lack of reaction bothering him more than her words.

"You just said that to... four thousand nine hundred and fifty two watchers." She said simply, holding up her scol so he could clearly see the live stream she was running. "I wanted to make sure the backlash to you really hurt. Also while I'm at it..." She said, resolve in her voice, she'd been planing to tell her this anyway once she got back, seeing as that might not happen and she'd told her to watch.

"Now a personal message to my 'Super bestie' I would like to inform you as to the reason I had no desire to talk about cute boys with you, I find girls much better and there's one I would really like to do more than talk about, what I am asking, Will you go on a date with me and be more than my 'bestie' Will you be my Girlfriend? I hope for an answer when I get back." She said simply, turning off the stream, their was no reason to keep it running, the point was out and the completed thing was going to be uploaded by Yang anyway; besides the important stuff was out their anyway.

"You, you..."

"Get up off the floor and follow me." Weiss said simply, running away again. Winter now the only thing on her mind.

…

 _Meanwhile back at Beacon a few minutes previously._

"Come on Yang I want to see this, Weiss said it was really important!" Ruby cried out form her bed as she looked down at her Sisters lap top screen.

"Hold on Rubes. It aint going anywhere, it's just not started yet."

"But she said she was going to see him two hours ago!" Ruby whined from her bed.

"I suspect it's simply taking a while for her to get in. Either way she said she was going to record everything if the stream didn't work." Blake pointed out, leaning against the wall as she flicked through her book absent-mindedly.

"But that'll take to long!" Ruby pointed out.

"Well theirs not much we can do about that, oh, it's starting!" Yang said cheerfully, pointing down at the screen.

The three member's of Team RWBY where impressed by Weiss' actions. However, it was her last question that got the best reactions out of the group.

"...Will you go on a date with me..."

Ruby stopped, looking down a the screen in shock. Blake let out a small smile from behind her book and Yang... well...

"How dare she!"

"Yang..." Ruby said, suddenly very concerned for Wiess' saftey.

"No, How dare that prissy... I was going to do that first!"

"What!?" Ruby cried out, looking at Yang in horror.

"Not you dumbass, Blake, I was going to aproach her all cool one day and get a small conversation going, then I was gonna encourage her to try this new fish place that opened and it was going to be perfect and I'm saying this out loud aren't I?"

"You are." A certain cat Faunus said. Leaning in to use the blonds chest as a pillow. "And sure, lets try it."

Yang looked down, noting the cat girls closer proximity and serene expression as she got back to reading her book. She looked up to her sister, who was smiling at the two.

"Result." Yang said happily, wrapping her arms around Blake as the stream cut out.

…

Meanwhile on the other end of the house Six was grinning, Her scroll had been turned on as she was waiting for the live stream as well, the pair had decided Weiss needed a backup to prove her fathers guilt in being a horrible person. Just in case she needed proof on her side, although Six had to give her props for indirectly asking Ruby out over the stream, not using her name was good, it meant no one other than the receiver would understand what was going on and thus no one could bother Ruby (Being a potential lover of the heiress tot eh biggest Dust company in the world would draw a lot of unwanted attention onto the receiver... even if it wasn't terribly fair)

Not that Six had actively been listening to most of the stream, she'd caught the tail end of it once the group of White Fang grunts she and Ilia had been fighting finally went down.

"That was ballsy of her." Ilia comented, looking at the Scroll with a certain degree of respect.

"Weiss is a lot nicer than she looks." Six said simply as she went to get moving again, they where a long way form the office and she wanted to help Weiss out.

"How was that nice? She ruined his name amongst a lot of the population, the Vacuo markets aren't going to be happy about that crap." Ilia pointed out as she took the lead again, carefully sticking her head around each corner to see if anyone was waiting for them around it.

"Nicer than I would have been, I wouldn't have threatened to gut him." Six said simply. Ilia stopped to look at her.

"Serioussly?" She said, looking at the girl in amazement.

"Not saying it would have been the smart thing to do." Six elaborated, grinning as she moved to join the chameleon. "Just saying I would have done it, I don't put up with crap like that."

 _Unless your the one doing it._

Six turned at the sound of the familiar voice, even if she knew full well it's user wasn't nearby.

 _Fin shut up._

 _I understand now is not the time, but I will say this, Weiss learned the difference between the group that hurt her and the people, you should as well._

 _I...I... Argh!_

Six groaned, annoyingly he was right, but she didn't have the time now to think about it.

"Six?" Ilia said, looking at the Spartan how had just stopped for a few seconds for no reason.

"Sorry, come on lets go." Six said, smiling as she forced herself onwards.

"Okay, where going to take a short cut through the servant's quarters, it's much quicker to move through their than it is along the hallways, once through here we need just need to duck through a secret passageway and I can get us directly into the wing of the building his office is located in."

"Good." Six said, nodding as Ilia opened a door which was nearly seamlessly integrated into the wall.

The corridor the pair ducked into was no where near as highly detailed as the outer corridor, simple plaster board walls and plain wooden floors decorated these halls.

Six had a bit of a problem.

"Urgh." she groaned as she forced her seven foot tall frame down a corridor not tall enough to fit it. She didn't have the room to walk properly in here let alone fight.

Although Six was handling the crampedness as well as she could given the circumstances... Ilia however...

"It's okay, I can do this, It's fine, its not like this place is under attack or anything... he, he, he..."

Six looked down at her.

"Are you okay?" She asked, knowing full well she wasn't but...

"I, yeah, yeah I'm fine, it's just... I don't like cramped spaces... Bad experiences..." She muttered as the two kept walking.

Sadly their plan of taking a short cut before reaching a secret passageway didn't really end up working.

Mostly because of a small purple glowing thing that was thrown down the corridor.

Six's eyes widened, she didn't have time to warn Ilia, he just moved forward, grabbing the Faunus girl and driving her to the floor, using her armor as a shield. She only had a few seconds to do this because the grenade went of...

It was at that point the pair realised it wasn't only the decorating that had been skimped on down here; Structural integrity also clearly hadn't been thought on as all the priorities list.

The corridor caved in, crushing the two as the debris fell on the Spartan who was forced to use her armor lock to stop herself from crushing Ilia.

"Ilia! Ilia are you okay!" Six cried out, looking at the girl who had gone ram rod stiff. Her eyes where large and not focusing on anything properly. Her fingers where stuck out like crazy and she was hyperventilating.

"Ilia you're safe!" Six yelled, trying to get some response from the girl.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no..." She muttered over and over again. Six really wanted to do something to the girl to help snap her out of it, but she couldn't do anything and to make it even worse her semblance gave out.

The backlash was intense, the power radiated from it was insane and seamed to wrap around her brain, attempting to squeeze the life out of it, to make it black out. Normally Six could do nothing to fight back against it, however given the circumstances she had to stay awake, she couldn't let this all fall on Ilia.

The difference was so easy to notice, Six had gone from a strength enhancing suit of power armor and augmented muscles to just her far weaker teenage self. The weight was almost impossible to bear as she struggled, her muscles aching from the strain of holding the weight, she needed to get out, and she had to do it fast.

 _A note from the writer: I regret nothing._

 _Also if you where intrested in knowing what Six's armor looks like, imagine this:_ _/6cVGmXVBut a girl_


	38. Chapter 38

Chapter 38 Under a ton of rock

Weiss looked behind herself, her father was keeping up with her, although he was swearing and cursing her name under his breath as the two ran.

"Winter!" Weiss yelled as she looked around for her sister. Determined to find her and get out... Possibly her mother too.

"Whitley!" Jacques called. It made perfect sense to Weiss, he always did care for him more than the rest of them; literally she had proof if anyone wanted it. Not that they ever did...

Anyway Weiss was yelling and running when she had the good fortune to run into someone else, not that she was sad to see him.

"Klein!" She yelled, her face splitting into an enormous grin as the man who'd basically raised her came into view. By 'Basically raised her' Weiss meant: He was more like her father than her actual father. She was extremely happy to see him unhurt, actually he was more than that... He seamed to be happy before he turned and saw her.

He was still dressed in his uniform, his white shirt with black overcoat. Hell he even still had his pocket watch on him; however in his hands was something Weiss had never seen before.

It was a weapon, specifically a Claymore, over a meter long the heavy swords blade was aglow with dust as he swung it with all his might, sending the grunts it made contact with flying and falling apart in mid air as the effect of the blade registered. He grinned with triumph in his eyes before turning to look at Weiss.

"Miss Schnee!" He cried, running towards he and pulling the Heiress into a tight hug which she reciprocated.

"It's so good to see you!" She cried out as she let him go, looking him over, he didn't have a single mark on his body.

"The same to you miss, I was just on the way to bring you some tea when these blighters broke in, I might have dropped it during the fighting." He said, gesturing towards the discarded tray and cracked china that lay in the corner.

"I'd rather the china broke than you, we need help, we have to find Winter and Mother."

"Weiss you little...!"

"Oh and Whitley, sorry Father but seeing as he's the only one you actually give a shit about I figured I wouldn't have to mention him, anyway lets split up, father you go find him and me and Kline can go find everyone else." Weiss said. This wasn't a serious suggestion, Weiss was mostly saying this to piss of her father. She wasn't actually expecting him to leave them alone.

Sadly she wasn't wrong and he didn't actually leave, he just blustered some more as Klein burst out into another massive grin.

"Miss this is a change... I like it!" He said, his voice changing as his eyes flashed red. "And if I may..." He continued, his eyes going blue as he spoke. "...Now might be your best to chance to tell him, you know... that."

"I already did, I even indirectly asked her out as a matter a fact." Weiss explained to Klein as her father started to foam at the mouth.

"You did, well congratulations Snowflake!" Klein cried out, his eyes returning to there normal yellow as he looked at her.

"You, you knew!" Jacques cried out, shoving his daughter aside to confront him; only for his eyes to flash Red and his sword to only just stop before it ran him through.

"Yes Sir I did, seeing as you felt it appropriate to hire me to raise her instead of doing it yourself I did know. You see she actually trusted me." He said, his eyes flashing back to yellow as he looked Jacques in the eye.

The man felt something when his cold blue eyes met the yellow glare, Hatred. Klein was looking at him with a burning rage as he moved closer, only just stopping his sword from penetrating him.

"She did not trust you, and I do not blame her in the slightest. Your involvement in her life had brought her nothing but misery, you never cared for her, only your brother, I have seen and heard so many horrible things in my time under your service. And I am telling you now sir, no more."

"You should know your place, no one will believe a fired Buttler over a Schnee."

"They will if another backs them up." Weiss said, moving to stand next to Klein and join the stare down of the man who made her childhood hell.

"Weiss..." He growled through gritted teeth.

"I'm glad you're firing me sir, it saves me the trouble of having to resign." Klein said simply, he then pulled out his scroll and tapped a few buttons causing the familiar sound of something sending to echo inn the hallway.

"What did you do!" Jacques growled, flabbergasted by this treatment, he hadn't married that the Nieve bitch to put up with this crap.

"I have seen every horrible thing you have done; So have the cameras. My Snowflake needed me so I would never dare act against you, if you fired me I couldn't help her. Also I thought my time was up, I thought I was too old to get back into the hunting game; However today has taught me different, I am still more than capable and my Snowflake has proven she doesn't need me anymore, she's grown up and I will stand by her. So Mr Jacque's Schnee, I have one thing to say to you: I do hope you enjoy the worlds press having an absolute field day once they read through all those files I just sent them, you may have wiped the tapes but it was never fast enough." Klein stated. All sides of him enjoying the look of horror in the man's face.

"You, you..." Jacques started to splutter before:

 _Crash!_

A glass bottle shattered over his head. Weiss and Klein span around to see who had thrown it.

"Winter!" Weiss beamed happily as her Sister came into view, another woman slung over her shoulders; looking at who it was she could guess where the bottle had come from.

"Hello Weiss. And Klein it is a pleasure to see you again, I apologise that it took so long to find you; however, I had to pull Mother off the floor so she wouldn't get hurt." She said as she looked down at the passed out man that was technically her father. (Although Winter held similar thoughts on the man that Weiss did, even if she was more capable of remembering times when her mother was sober and actually a mother to her.)

"That is more than understandable Winter, although I suppose someone should carry him..." Weiss said, glancing down at her father as he lay knocked out on the cold ground.

"I'll do it." Klein said, bending down and scooping him of the floor, dumping him over his shoulders.

"Are you sure?" Weiss asked; the man had just given a big speech explaining why he hated the other.

"Yes, I didn't send all those documents to the press to not see his face when he sees it." He explained simply.

Weiss and Winter beamed as they set off, they just needed to find Whitley and get out.

…

That being said, if they'd known what Six was dealing with at the moment they would have ran of to go find her. Sadly they didn't so Six was stuck on her own, Well she was with Ilia but she couldn't do anything, she was basically stuck under Six and had no room to move around.

Six also had to stay silent, she didn't know who threw the grenade but she was sure they weren't friendly.

Six could hear heavy footsteps moving around outside the pile. She couldn't see the figure moving around outside, however her experience with the Covenant let her guess. It wasn't a Hunter, they didn't need to throw a grenade and the footsteps where to heavy for a Jackle or Grunt.

So it was an Elite outside, Six froze, sweat falling down her face: Both from tension and struggling under the weight of the corridor on top of her.

"Did you get them?"

"I think so."

Six had to fight the urge to let out a sigh of relief, she wasn't safe yet and the last thing she wanted to do was blow it just before she could have been safe.

Eventually the footsteps faded away. Six looked down at Ilia.

"Are you okay?" She asked, looking down at Ilia who had gone pure white in terror as her eyes darted around the small cave Six was forming.

"Ye, yeah...!" She blurted as her eyes shrank, she was trapped and she knew it.

"You don't sound it." Six said dully, her brain not able to make proper conversation with her body screaming how it was in so much pain.

"I, I don't like tight spaces."

"Claustrophobic?" Six asked, gasping as her arms spasmed and the roof dropped lower.

Six's face was now inches of Ilia's while the rest of her literally was on Ilia.

"Argh, sorry!" Six blurted, she was almost certainly making this girl very uncomfortable.

"I'm okay, I'd rather have you on top of me than rubble." She said, the spots on her face turning pink and giving it some colour back.

"Glad I could help." Six said, smiling weekly as she looked around.

"Yeah..."

The two sat their in silence for a few minutes, Six only letting out the occasional grunt of pain as she fought to keep the debris of them.

"Okay, I'm gonna say it, this is easily the second worst situation I've ever been in." Six said eventually as the feeling of Ilia's body became to much to bear. She was literally stuck on top of her and she liked it despite the danger she was in.

"What's worse than this?" Ilia asked. Her voice was still shaking but she'd become less pale and her eyes weren't darting around.

"I got ran through the chest one time, that was a bitch." Six explained simply as she tried to focus on something other than Ilia's face. (Which was a lot harder than it sounded, she was trying to find a way out, not notice how cute the chameleon Faunus was.)

"Ouch."

"What about you, how far up is this on the terrible day scale for you?" Six asked, finally giving up on looking at rubble and deciding that Ilia was much nicer to look at than rubble and also that she wasn't getting the pair out without help. Their where only a few gaps in the debris which where letting the light in and even then it was through foot long passageways.

"I'm with you, second worse."

"Why, you ran through the chest?"

"No, well... not physically..."

"I'm sorry." Six said, she knew that look, she'd just brought up painful memories and she didn't like upsetting people.

"It's okay, it was years ago... My parent's... I lost them, my school and friends on the same day... If I hadn't met Blake I don't think I could have kept going."

"Why, what happened?" Six asked as her muscles burned in agony from supporting the ton of crap above her.

"I was crying my eyes out, I'd just been thrown out of the school after they learnt I lied about my species, I was lost and hungry, my parent's where dead... I didn't have anywhere to go, and then... After all that... everyone ignored me, no one stopped to help, I just sat their crying my eyes out in my torn uniform... I had nothing... Then, then I met Blake." She explained as she smiled, thinking back to the one thing that had gave her any happiness that day.

"She didn't know what was going on; she just saw I was hungry and told me she knew where we could get food. I wasn't sure, but I'd lost everything; I didn't think it could get any worse... and it didn't. I actually got better, Blake, she was everything I needed. This scrawny little cat Faunus who gave everything to help anyone she thought needed it... And her teacher." Ilia's face fell as she spoke, Six could tell she was not a fan of this teacher.

"I get why she liked him, I really do. Well, not enough to stick around apparently. But I get why at the start. They where practically glued together, you couldn't get them apart for anything; even if you wanted to. Like I did..." Ilia said, her skin returning to it's blue colouring as she spoke.

"I just wanted her to notice me, I thought, I thought... I don't know, but I guess I never had a chance..."

Six looked down at her.

"I'm sorry." It was all she could get out, really what else could she say.

"It's fine... these things happen, just, why did it have to be her!?" Ilia said,a tyear falling from her eye as she spoke.

"I, I don't that's true." Six said slowly, she did not want to give Ilia false hope, she knew who Blake liked... (Coco and Velvets minor gossiping habit had some advantages) ...But she wasn't going to let it end like this. "She's, Really close with her partner at Beacon, I don't think it was that, she probably didn't expect it and... I don't know, maybe she liked you more as a friend, that's not an insult, It still means you're amazing... It means they like you... but sometimes things just don't, I mean... Crap I have no idea what I'm saying..." Six muttered as she looked down again. Ilia was full on crying now, Six really hadn't said the right thing.

"I know, I was always her friend, I just wanted to be more than that..."

"Well... I know how that feels..." Six said as her thoughts turned to a certain orange haired android.

"You got someone like that in your life?" Ilia asked.

"Yeah, yeah I do. I like her, but... The more time I spend with her, I don't know, I don't think she could even register romance as a thing if she tried! She's adorable but... Urgh, I was going to ask her out when I got back... But, I don't think that's happening anymore." Six said. Her body practically screaming from the struggle of keeping the sort of roof up.

"Well, I'm sure she would have said yes." Ilia said, smiling up at the Spartan.

Six didn't know why she was doing it. She was stuck and going to die, she should have been panicking as she lowered her head, She should have been trying to force the debris upwards, but she couldn't, sshe could keep them in place, maybe it was the hormones, maybe it was affection, Six didn't know. All she knew was that she wanted to do what she was doing.

She brought her mouth to Ilia's. They where pretty much screwed anyway and kissing someone seamed a nicer final thought than 'Oh no I'm going to die'

It was slow and they didn't really do much beyond that, Six couldn't really move as much as she wanted to, she was trying to make sure she could even do this without being crushed, she was going to finish this before that happened.

Except a minute after their kiss the two where no longer in danger. The Debris where smashed out from on top of them as a giant stepped in to hold the remains up. Six looked up and saw a familiar burnt blue shield above her head.

 _You two should consider moving, I can hold this thing up here for hours although I could still be shot in the back._

Six had never been so happy to see a Hunter in her life. Grabbing Ilia's hand she pulled the girl out from underneath her and out tot he safety of the mansion corridor.

She looked at the chameleon, who was looking around, exhilaration plastered on her face as she took in the large corridors and tall ceilings.

"Ilia, about what happened back there..." Six started to say before she was interrupted.

Ilia moved forward, wrapping her arms around Six and pulling her into a deeper kiss than before. It was sloppy and awkward but Six did not care.

"Thank you!" Ilia said, moving out for a second to talk before moving back in to kiss her again. "Thank you so much!" She cried out as she pulled the Spartan even closer.

Six wasn't really looking at Ilia, she had her eyes closed as she enjoyed the hugs/kissing. Her mind was in bliss at that point. Only one thought beyond 'Oh yes, yes, yes!" was present in her mind. Fin had saved her and without his help she wouldn't be enjoying this right now, she would be dead, she'd never have gotten the chance to help anyone else, she'd never go to Menagerie and find Emile, she'd never get to do anything again.

All this because of Fin, he'd gotten her out of that situation, he was the reason she'd get a chance to do anything again.

The Covenant had destroyed her home, their was no two ways about that. But, if she was willing to forgive and ignore the crimes of a member of the White Fang, well... She could do the same for the Hunter who'd saved her life.

Fin was okay in Six's book.


	39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39 Not again!

The Schnee group was on a roll, charging through what was left of the house, Weiss was doing most of the fighting but that wasn't a problem, as they'd learn most of the forces weren't here... and their was a good reason for that as Noble Six and her group would soon learn. However that wasn't for now, at the moment they where charging towards the exit.

Jacques was still knocked out and Willow Schnee (better known as Weiss' mother) was also still un conscious. It was depressing that the two of them being knocked out and slung over someone's shoulders was the closest thing to a couple's activity the pair had done since the wedding and Jacques was no longer obligated to act like he gave a shit.

"We're almost their!" Weiss yelled as they ran down the corridors as they where getting nearer to the front door of the manor.

It was just as it came into view when a figure dived in.

"Fin?" Weiss said, slowing to a halt. The giant turned to look at her.

 _Weiss, where is Six?_

"I thought she was outside!"

 _Did you think she would just ignore this?_

Weiss was about to respond when she realised that given everything she knew about Six, no, no she wouldn't ignore this.

"In my defence I haven't seen her since the attack started..." Weiss muttered. Fin looked around.

 _But... I need to go, get out of here, we'll find her._

Weiss looked around, fallowing Fin where Carter and Kat.

"Where's Jorge?" Winter asked as the other two Spartans ran in.

"He's picking of stragglers from a distance, that gun has insane reach and a Father shouldn't run into an active combat zone before his baby's born." Carter explained from the inside of the robot suit.

"Yeah, now can we find Six please?" Kat said, not happy with the idea of her being stuck inside this house any longer than she had to be.

 _I can't find her, she's gone outside of my range._

"Then we move, come on we have to find her." Carter said, looking around the room.

"There's to many possibilities of where to look... unless, Weiss is their a CCTV system here?"

"There is." Klein said from the side. "It's just over here... Weiss I hate to do this but..."

"I'll take him, you get them to the CCTV and find her, I owe the girl a lot, I'd like if she made it back."

"We'll find her." Carter said as he and Kat followed the Buttler. Fin meanwhile was just standing their.

"Aren't you going to help her?" Winter asked as the Hunter stood up.

 _It will be quicker for me to look on foot, so long as I get near her I can find her._

And without another thought he sprinted of, the halls shaking as he ran, little cracks appearing in the floor wherever his massive feet made contact with the ground.

"Come on, this man is really heavy" Weiss said, confident in Six's friends ability to get them out.

"Are you okay with leaving it to them?" Winter asked as they made there way down the path.

"Yes, It's not like the place is overrun is it?" Weiss said, looking up at the house, it seemed like the guard and the arriving Atlas Military backup had gotten everything under control, or at least stopped any more people/aliens getting in.

"I guess... Urgh she's heavy." Winter said, looking up at her mother, who was reeking of alcohol right about now and had been on her back about long enough to start feeling really heavy.

…

"So, I'm not complaining or anything, but how did you find us?" Six asked as she looked at the Hunter.

 _Your thoughts where amplified due to a surge of hormonal activity._

"Wow, Talk about the kiss of life." Six grinned as she ran next to Ilia and Fin, heading towards the exit, the Schnee's where safe and all they had to do was get out... so of course it wasn't that simple.

The three where running along when something stepped out to stop them.

"Well this is unexpected." The Elite said, staring down the group approaching him. The three of them skidded to a halt, The Elite had an energy sword up to the neck of one of the manors maids.

"Let her go." Six said, reaching for her hammer.

"I think not." The Elite said simply, continueing to hold his hostage.

 _You always where a Coward Turak Vol._

"You know this thing?" Ilia asked as she looked at the Elite.

 _Yes. He was in charge of one of our ships over Reach._

"What's Reach?" Ilia asked as she took a step back.

"A blight upon the Galaxy I assure you." Turak said, smiling in the creepy way only Elites could as Six's fist's clenched.

"It was my home you jack ass." Six scowled back.

"Yes... Might I congratulate you on surviving our assault." Turak said, a notable edge of anopyance in his voice.

"Wasn't just me, there's quite a lot of us actually." Six said, despratley trrying to figure out a way of getting his hostage out before...

 _Slash!_

Six didn't even speak, or yell or do anything, she just moved, suddenly she was in front of the Elite and had swung her hammer as hard as she could.

Only to have the hammer stopped by the Elite who looked down at her.

"You are not the same as the Demon I fought on that miserable wreck." He said coldly as he looked down at her. Six fired of the Dust chamber, only to have the familiar click that told her she was out.

"Pathetic." He said, forcing Six back as he threw her back down the corridor.

This turned out to be a mistake, mostly because nothing was blocking Fin's view as the Hunter let his plasma fly. It charged down the corridor and slammed into the Elite, who's burnt golden armor easily took the shot to Fin's horror.

 _Your armor isn't that good._

"You're half right, It wasn't that good, now... Now I have been given so much more by my lady."

"And who would that be." Six said as she forced herself off the ground, trying to ignore the fact she'd heard the familiar crackle of an Aura breaking, meaning she was facing down an extremely strong muscle bound tank of an Elite with a fully functioning energy shield in a thin hoodie and sweat pants.

"Salem. I have found them and my Godess will save us."

 _You found a Forerunner?_

"Fin don't do it!" Six gasped, looking at the Hunter.

"Yes brother, however; you will not be joining us on the great journey. She has no place for traitors!" He said, his grandiose tone breaking down into yelling as Turak sprinted towards the trio; his Sword igniting as he ran towards them. Not even bothering to avoid the maids body as he rann towards them.

Ilia acted first, aiming her weapon and firing it off quickly. The weapon returned to it's users hand bent as it failed to penetrate the armor. Ilia took that as the que to leave. Running back away from the Elite.

Turak didn't say a thing, instead he pulled a needler of his back and fired it at the chameleon girl who was only just able to dodge out of the way as the shots hit the wall above her.

 _Get out. I'll deal with this._

Ilia grabbed Six as she went to protest and dragged her back along the corridor.

"Ilia we can't just... what are you doing?" Six asked in shock as she saw what the girl was doing, quickly looking away.

"A trick I like to avoid if I can. Also getting you out of the way of the giant monster."

"Fin's bigger." Six pointed out as she tried to think of a way to help Fin out.

"I know, but the other guys strong, my weapons never bent before." Ilia explained as she finished her preparation, turning around to look at Six who had her eyes glued to the wall.

"You could have looked you know, we've got bigger problems than that at the moment."

"I know, I need to think of a way out of them." Six said, slamming her head into the wall.

"In my experience that doesn't help." Ilia said simply as Six did it again.

"Well I'm trying okay!"

"So am I, I've got a plan, unfortunately your bit is going to be insanely dangerous without an Aura..."

Six scowled at her, then forced everything she had into her body, searching deep inside her for something, anything she had.

A flash of light went of and Six looked up, her helmet staring back at Ilia.

"Will this do?" She asked as she towered over the girl.

"Yup, hey you've got another weapon." She said, pointing out the Handgun magnatised to Six's thigh.

"Yes, except these things are awful believe me." Six said, glancing down at the tiny weapon.

"It doesn't have to be good, I just need you to keep him busy for a little bit."

"Ilia what's your plan?" Six asked as she looked at the Faunus girl. Who let out a smile Six would get to know quite well, She grinned as she showed Six what she was holding.

"Well, do you think he could survive this?"

…

Fin and Turak had been having a busy time while Six and Ilia talked.

The two where clashing and fighting like crazy. Fin would seam to an outsider to have the advantage, being bigger and more heavily armoured. Their was one tiny problem though.

Turak was good. Really good. He had risen so fast through the Covenant ranks their was a joke going around that he was trying to outrun something in slip space. He fought with a ruthless efficacy that his enemy's would come to dread in the seconds they where usually given.

He was admittedly having some minor problems with the Hunter in front of him, however that would not last long.

"Why, why did you do it?! Why would you betryay the Covenant!" He said; his tone perfectly calm even if the rage could be seen in his eyes.

 _Our beliefs are wrong._

"They are not, how can you say such heresy? I have seen her, I know what I do is right!"

 _Then you are a deluded fool._

"No, you aree, we will purge this planet and..."

 _You fail to see the problem in your argument._

"What do you mean you traitorous cur? How can you deny what is so clear to us!"

 _Simple, we are not even in anywhere close to the same dimension. Why would they be over here?_

"To guide us stragglers and reward us for our mighty acts!"

 _So why is it only now that they show themselves to us?_

"We had the Prophets! They guided us along the divine path!"

 _They where mad old fools!_

"Why must you be so dense! We are in the right! We have proof! We are the only truly Noble creatures on this planet." Turak yelled as a gun shot rang down the corridor.

"That is so wrong on so many levels." Six called, lowering her gun and walking towards the Elite and Fin.

"Ah, so the Demon has found her shell." Turak said, looking down at the Spartan as her armor thunked against the floor.

"You are not even close to being Noble, I'm Noble, there Noble; you... You're not even close to them." Six said as she fired more shots at the Elite.

"And yet I am still disappointed." Turak said as Six threw the gun away, it's clip empty.

"You know this isn't how we fight." Six said, adopting a fighting stance as she looked at the Elite. "So what do you say? Want to see what we can really do?"

 _Six this is..._

"I know Fin, I know, but I can take him, if he thinks he can."

"We are not so crude to fall for such a privative method of baiting." Turak said, seemingly aggravated at how blunt Six was being.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I Noble Six challenge you to a one on one duel with me, will you except?" She asked, wishing she had a glove to throw.

"Very well human."

 _Six..._

"Fin stay back, this is a one on one fight." Six said, lying through her teeth.

 _Very well._

Six grinned as Turak discarded his Needler and Energy Sword. The two of them limbered up for a second before charging in.

The two fought like the demons the others thought each other where. Fists flew as fast as lightning; Kicks struck with an insane amount of force. The two of them where fighting as hard as they could. Until Six broke into an enormous smile behind her helmet and jumped back quite a few feet.

"What are you!?" Turak yelled, only for his eyes to widen in horror as he saw what was planted on his shoulder.

Six grinned and gave the pure white girl clinging to the ceiling the thumbs up.

Ilia grinned manically as her skin returned to normal and she flipped the switch on the explosives she'd just stuck to the Elites back.

"You..."

 **Ka-Blam!**

 _That was not very honourable._

Six shrugged as Ilia began to climb back down the wall.

"It worked didn't it?" Six said as Ilia unstuck herself from the wall.

 _You did not do well by him._

"Well forgive me if I wanted to live." Six said simply.

…

"Look I get it's not how you work, I'm sorry, I really am. But he was kicking your ass? What chance did I stand." Six said as she looked at the Hunter. "Anyway, I'm Noble Six, I'm part of a team, I work with people... I gave up on being a lone wolf a long time ago."

 _Do something like this again and I will not be so forgiving._

Fin then turned to look at Ilia.

 _Why are you lacking clothing?_

The girls hands darted to her chest as she realised that decenncy could start being a priority again now their wasn't imitate danger.

"I, It's a trick I pull... I can change my skin to specific colours if I try hard enough, but my outfit doesn't change with it so I had to ditch it..." Ilia muttered, her whole body going red as she looked around.

"Well it was a good plan... I... Wow... guess I wasn't as back as I thought..." Six muttered the fatigue of her Semblance caught up with her.

"Six?" Ilia asked as Six's legs gave up on her.

"It's okay, Fin could I get a lift?" Six asked as the world blacked out around her and she hit the ground with a solid thump.


	40. Chapter 40

Chapter 40 Fallout

"Urgh..." Six groaned groggily as she regained consciousness.

"Six!" A loud group cried out. Six jolted awake, thinking she was under attack for one mad second.

A second later Six realised what was actually going on. She was in an Atlas Hospital and had a worried team gathered around her bed.

"Noble if you could avoid things like this in the future it would be much appreciated." Carter said, smiling weekly as he looked down at the Spartan.

"Yeah, I don't think I can watch Carter worry like that again." Kat said slyly as she looked over at Carter. Who didn't respond outside of a glare.

"Guys I'm fine, I just passed out..." Six said as the events of the day came rushing back to her.

"Well forgive us if all we got when we found the cameras was an explosion and you passing out." Carter said simply.

"It's not my fault my semblance drains all my energy... Wish I could stop it from doing that..."

"According to a certain Chameleon you managed it once." Kat said, her grin growing bigger as Six started looking around frantically.

"Ilia! Where is she, I! Is she!"

"She's fine, just a little sleepy." Jorge said, pointing over to the back of the room.

Six looked over and saw Ilia snoozing across several chairs. She was curled up and had reclaimed her outfit at some point.

"Hasn't left the room since you where brought in here." Lucy said from one of the few chairs Ilia wasn't sleeping on. "I don't know what happened back there but she's a keeper."

Six nodded, wondering about... Well... it was the flash of the moment, she wanted it to last and apparently Ilia wanted it too as well. Just... How did this work? Like...

Six decided to wait until the two of them where alone before asking her about that.

"Yeah, I wonder what happened too..." Kat said, grinning massively.

"Oh god what are you getting at?" Six asked as everyone in the room adopted an insane grin.

"Well, it's just... Fin said he detected you two because of a massive hormonal surge..." Jorge said as he looked at her.

"Yeah, and you two where alone... Also she was naked when we saw her..."

"That was part of a fucking plan!" Six gasped as she forced herself up from the bed.

"Really, a 'Fucking plan?' Care to elaborate?" Lucy asked.

Six went bright red as the rest of them engaged in a contest of who could do the best smirk.

"No, no I don't!" Six blurted as everyone began laughing.

"Well other than that, it's glad to see your okay Noble; I was worried when the manor came under attack." Carter said, his laughter dyeing down and turning into a warm smile as Six looked around awkwardly.

"I wasn't actually in the building when it fell under attack... I kinda ran in..."

Everyone face palmed as Six let out a goofy grin.

"That makes way to much sense." Carter said; his voice having the defining tone of resenment as he said it.

"Sorry... Weiss was in their and well..."

"I know, I know; I'm not complaining just... A call... Something... It wouldn't hurt to let us know when you're about to do something insane."

"Yeah share it, its way more fun." Kat said from the side.

"I will, I promises." Six said, looking around the room and noticing something. Seriously wondering how she missed the big blue elephant in the room.

"Erm... where's Fin?"

"Are you kidding?" Jorge asked as he looked at her with his head tilting to the side. "I barley fit in here and I'm only seven point four feet tall. How the hell do you think he'd fit in here, he's almost double my hight."

 _Seven point four... You think we've forgotten something._

 _Yeah... something big..._

 _Wait..._

"Seven!" Six blurted, looking around as if the AI would just still be standing around.

"What?" Everyone asked as Six's eyes glanced around like crazy.

"Seven, has she woken up yet?"

"Six what are you on about?" Jorge asked as he looked at her.

"Seven, she's kinda important, she just went into deep thinking when I was hiding in the cave."

"Well last time I checked she was still in your helmet." Carter explained to Six.

"I haven't heard her say much recently actually..." Kat said as she looked at Six.

"I, okay, sorry, she just seamed really worried about something..." Six muttered.

"I'm sure it'll be fine Six." Carter said.

"I guess..."

"Also I'm fine, given you ran into find me I thought you'd like to know that." A voice said form the door.

"Weiss!" Six said, happy to see the girl was okay.

"Good to see you to." She said as she walked nearer the bed.

"Same here." Weiss said, smiling happily as Six adjusted her spot on the bed.

"How's everyone else in the family holding up?" Six asked, knowing she'd at least been neer her father when the attack started.

"Winters fine, Klein suffered a few minor burns, nothing to sevear there. Mother is being treated for the damage to her liver, nothing to bad but it's better to treat it early; Whitley was evacuated with some of the guards; he's not doing so great; he took a plasma burst to the chest. He's still breathing but he's going to need a lot of reconstruction work before he can leave this hospital." Weiss explained simply.

"What about your dad?" Six asked as Weiss let out a cruel smile.

"He was unhurt aside from some bruising to the head. However he's got far bigger things to worry about."

"How bad are we talking?"

"Vale and Haven demanded he be arrested for violating trade agreements and abusing workers, Klein leaked a lot of incriminating footage and the other kingdoms where not happy."

"Hang on how did he get away with doing that stuff for so long?" Six asked as she looked at Weiss.

"Quite simply depressingly, The Schnee Dust company was the worlds largest dust supplier in the world and a lot of Kingdoms had to overlook things to get the dust they needed."

"Hang on 'Was?' What happened to the company?"

"The mansion wasn't their only target." Carter explained as he turned on his Scroll to show her some images.

"The reason the Military took so long getting to the manor is because they where held up at the company's headquarters and main mines." Weiss explained.

"Guessing this was the mine?" Six asked, pointing to what looked like a several miles deep creator.

"Yes, The White Fang forced everyone off site before detonating the main Dust mines. Over two hundred thousand tons of dust lost in one burst."

"That's insane, everything uses Dust, losing that much is..."

"Crippling, I know." Weiss said,a small smile on her face. "Luckily it's not our only mine, however with so much damage done to the company. Well the world decided it didn't need to put up with his shit anymore."

"And that's a good thing?" Six asked looking at her.

"Well it's good in the sense of his practises can't keep happening; but bad in the sense of a thousand people just lost their job. Granted it's bad for there health, but now they have nothing. Their still being payed because we lost most of our tech guys so knowns been able to stop it. But that wont last long, We gotta get Mother sobered up and ready to plan something out."

"Why? Wasn't their a second in command? And, you know... a crap ton of people below that?" Six asked.

"There was." Lucy cut in. "But because of the head quarters going boom and the resulting earthquakes several thousand tons of exploding Dust creates their all dead, as is most of the board, and the stock holders."

"Crap..." Six muttered, looking shocked.

"Well if it helps it was mostly company property damaged and the ritcher area destroyed. Most of Atlas is fine... Well, still alive anyway." Carter explained.

"The Atlesian knights are looking for survivors as we speak." Kat said. Then she looked at Six who had her head down.

"No."

"What..."

"No you couldn't have done anything so don't go feeling bad for it, in real terms some people got hurt and a big company's stock went down. That's it, You couldn't have done anything if you'd wanted to so stop feeling bad about it." Kat said simply. At that point Illia was starting to wake up and everyone got ready to leave. "Anyway, you've got other things to think about."

Pretty quickly everyone had gone, leaving Six and Ilia alone.

"Hi." Six said, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly.

"Hi." She said, looking down at the Spartan.

"So... Erm..." Six said, looking over at her.

 _Why is talking so damn hard!_

 _Because death isn't knocking on your door right now._

 _I guess, just... Argh!_

"Should we, I mean... Do you want to?" Ilia asked, looking down at Six.

"I think so, wait, what do you want to do?" Six asked, looking at her. She went red and scowled.

"Go on a date of course, unless of course that meant nothing to you in which case..."

"No, I meant, what do you want to do when we're on the date, I mean, I'd like to try and be... you know..."

"Oh, well..." Ilia said, going pink as she twirled her finger around a strand of her hair. "There was a fun looking amusement park in Vale I've always wanted to go too..."

"That sounds great." Six said, looking up at Ilia.

Maybe they where going to fast, maybe this wouldn't work out... Maybe...

 _Oh fuck it._

 _Yeah lets just do it._

"So, Girlfriends...?" Ilia asked slowly. Six nodded and Ilia broke into an enormous smile.

"Yes, Girlfriends." Six said. Smiling as Ilia moved her chair nearer to her. She reached over for the remote to the TV and flicked the channels around until she found a good looking movie. The two sat their, not really saying anything aside from the occasional poking fun of dumb moments, just spending time close to each other.

As the movie progressed Six realised something.

 _Coco is going to be insufferable... Wonder if I should warn Ilia..._

...

"Well, that was pathetic." Adam said, scowling down at the Elite below him.

"Hold your tongue Taurus." The Elite scowled, looking over at the Faunus in front of him from the bed he was lying in.

"You lost to a girl built like a stick."

"That Demon broke the rules. She is an honourless cur." He scowled, thinking back to the fight.

"She did win the fight though."

"It was not meant to go like this." He scowled as he looked around.

"You're a sore loser, why would you ever give your enemy a fair fight? I didn't. First raid I went overboard in I threw a bag full of fire dust at a shop, that worked just fine for what I wanted. No Dust shop refused to sell to us over those next few days. Jokes on them, I made more bombs from the dust I brought." Adam said, sitting down next to the Elite.

"Why are you even here?" Turak asked; wondering iof his 'Ally' was just here to make fun of him and his plight.

"Well their where some rumours..." Adam muttered. Looking down at the covers which hid most of the downed Elite.

"About what?" Turak scowled, although he suspected he knew.

"Well for one thing; how did you even survive that? You had an explosive directly strapped to your back; how are you not dead?" He asked, legitimately surprised that the Elite had made it back.

"Our shield's are powerful enough to tank anything." He said, scowling as he finished speaking because he realised what Adam was going to say in response to that.

"Not powerful enough to save everything." He said grinning as he remembered Turak having to be carried back to the outpost by one of the surviving White Fang members who'd managed to get him away. (Adam had promoted this man, mostly because it took skill to carry an Alien three times bigger than you to a deserted mountain range without being spotted, even if Adam really would have liked for Turak to be among those who didn't make it back.)

"I am aware, however I lived. And look at how my Lady has rewarded me." He said, Grinning in the decidedly creepy way only a creature with four mandibles instead of a lower jaw could.

He shifted around under the covers and showed Adam what was underneath.

Ilia's explosive had hurt Turak, there was no getting around that much power no matter how strong your shields are. His entire left arm and most of his chest and guts had been gone. It was only due to unique organ placement that he'd lasted long enough for her to save his life.

Now though, well you could see what was in his hands, however his body was now better, Blessed by a godess. It wasn't a smooth transition mind you, his body was back. The missing section and arm now had a bony black replacement. The white spikes grew cruelly out of it added a sense of fear to the Elite.

His arm was Grimm and Turak was fine with that. The divine beasts goal was to exterminate humanity under her orders, now with her help he was closer to them, closer to her. To him this was proof that he was doing the right thing and he would continue to do that which she asked him.

"So it's true." Adam said coldly as he looked down at the twisted limb. Repuilsed by the monstrosity bonded to the Elite.

"Yes, With this I get one step closer to my goal. Do you have anything more to say or will you let me recover?" Turak asked as he looked at the Faunus. Who scowled and left the room.

As he left he saw one of her orbs float into the room. He couldn't help but look at the thing as it settled next to Turak.

"Are you well?" It asked, her voice resonating coolly around the room as the Elite nodded.

"Yes Milady, it is better than I could have ever hoped for." He said, wishing he could bow, but his prone state would not let him.

"You are more than welcome, the attack was a success even if the Schnee's lived."

"My lady..."

"Do not worry yourself Turak, without you and your men's help we could not have done this at all, so thank you. I have another job for you once you are recovered." The orb said as it floated in front of the Elite, who's eyes widened and he tried to force himself up.

"I will go now... _ARGH!_ " he gasped as he fell backwards onto the bed, his breathing accelerated as he tried to block out the pain.

"No, you will recover first. Then I will give you your instructions, and anyway, it's not the time yet, we still have a few weeks before the tournament."

"I will be more than ready by then."

"Make sure you are, I have work to do myself... Cinder has proven far less competent than she has in the past, I will need to prepare to counter that failure."

Turak hesitated, he wanted to ask however, she was a goddess, it was wrong to question, however, maybe she would clear his doubts...

"My lady..."

"Do not be afraid Turak, it does not suit you." She said simply as she looked down at him.

"My apologies, I must ask though... Why do you work with her! She, she is a human..."

"She will change, she acknowledges what must happen and is willing to help, it does not do to turn away allies, especially when they prove helpful; she has something you and your men could never gain I'm afraid; and I will not let that fool Ozpin have control over them." She responded simply.

"I understand, I am sorry."

"That is okay; However, I would advise you not to doubt my decisions again Turak."

"I will not my Lady, and thank you."

"You are welcome, now heal up and get ready." She said, her orb leaving the room. She did have a plan for what to do. It was time to see if any of their gifts still worked.


	41. Chapter 41

Chapter 41: Why has this not come up before?

Six's lot had returned to Vale last night. Ozpin was waiting for them and only seamed somewhat surprised that Six had brought home two more people than expected (Although he was surprised when she revealed it was actually three with the one Lucy was carrying on her)

Still Ozpin was a good sport about it and just sort of rolled with it. He'd even agreed to give Ilia a place at Beacon. Jorge had been hired to work as an assistant at Beacons vehicle bay and he even got a room out of it. He'd start in a week once Lucy had introduced him to her family.

The rest of Noble team really wanted to see those fireworks when they went off. But unfortunately Lucy wanted to keep things simple and shot that plan down. That was disappointing, but still it didn't matter in the long run. Six was sure they'd bump into them eventually.

What was much harder to avoid was the fallout of what Weiss and to a lesser extent Six had done while up in Atlas.

Not the mass destruction battle against aliens. That bit was on the down low (The official explanation was it was a White Fang attack which Ilia took offence to) No the bit Six and Weiss was having to deal with was on a far more social level.

Weiss had had to deal with it first. Mostly because the rest of Team RWBY was waiting for them when they got of the airship.

"Weiss..." Ruby said as the Heiress approached her.

"Ruby." She said, her eyes glancing around slightly, she'd been ready for this; but the reality of her actions was in front of her and part of her wished she'd just kept her trap shut.

"I, you where talking about me... Weren't you...?"

"Yes, yes I was." Weiss said.

"I, I don't know what to say... I..."

"Are you saying no?" Weiss asked, her worst fears sneaking up on her.

"No, no! I, I mean... I don't know... It's just..." Ruby looked up at Weiss, her face hard to read as she spoke. "I mean, I like you and a part of me wants to say yes, but it's, I never thought, I'm not sure..."

"If your not ready for a relationship that's fine." Weiss said, slightly crestfallen.

"No, no, I just... I don't know what to do or if would work out, I... What if it goes wrong and we end up hating each other? What happens if Team RWBY falls apart, I mean..." Ruby trailed of.

Weiss stood there and thought for a second.

"What if we did a trail run?"

"Huh?" Ruby said, looking up as Weiss smiled.

"Well, this is just a suggestion, but what if we tried a trail run, three dates, one picked by you, one by me and then one together. If it's not working or you're not comfortable with how things are going we can go back to being friends again."

Ruby thought for a second.

"I, I think I'd like that, we can try that, though... Can we not be like... them?" She asked, gesturing next to each other at Blake and Yang. Who where... Not being subtle about the fact the two where now together.

Weiss snorted with laughter as the blond and black haired girl prised themselves apart to look at them.

"Well you took your time getting here." Yang said, looking out at the newly returned group. "You took so long I had to find my own entertainment."

"The ship was only two minutes late, you could have waited." Blake said coolly, looking at Yang with an amused smirk on her face.

"I notice how you didn't stop me." Yang shot back, before looking over to Six. "Hey Six, who's your friend?" She asked, looking to the girl behind her, Who had frozen up as she made eye contact with Blake.

"Ilia?" Blake asked, actually separating from Yang to slowly walk towards the Chameleon girl.

"Blake..." She said slowly, looking over to Six who gave her an encouraging smile before pushing her towards Blake.

"Gah!" Ilia said, stumbling and stopping in front of the girl.

The two looked at each other for a second.

"So... How have you been doing?" Ilia asked, giving her friend a look that was hard to read.

"Fine..." The two stared at each other for a few seconds before both of them threw themselves at each other and pulled the other into a hug.

"You complete ass!" Ilia yelled, laughing herself silly as she hugged her old friend.

"I'm sorry! I couldn't say anything if I wanted it to work... I'm sorry I didn't say anything before I left..." Blake said, Ilia gave her a week smile.

"I know, I figured, it still hurt though..."

"I know, I didn't want to just leave without telling anyone but..."

"I get it, the White Fang isn't historically nice to deserters." Ilia said, causing Noble team to look at Blake.

"You where in the White Fang?" Six asked. Blake nodded.

"Yeah... didn't really have a choice..."

"That kinda happens when your dad founds it." Ilia explained as she looked at Six, who's mouth fell to the floor.

"Blake's dad formed a terrorist group?"

"No, he formed a civil rights movement. You can blame Sienna for the whole terrorist thing." Ilia explained as she walked over to Six.

"I, Sure, why not!" Six said, throwing her arms up in the air. She looked at team RWBY.

"Guessing you already knew?"

"We kinda thought you did to be honest." Ruby said, looking over at her.

"I, sure..." Six said, trailing off as she at Blake. "What's he doing now?"

Blake looked awkward at that.

"He, he's the chieftain of Menagerie actually..." Blake muttered, trailing off awkwardly.

Six beamed as she saw an opportunity.

"Erm... do you think you could get us permission to visit, I kinda need to get to Menagerie to find Emile..."

"That... that's not going to be possible." Blake said, looking at the ground. Ilia's eyes went wide and she started shaking her head as Six looked at Blake.

"Why not? I just need permission to get over their and I can find my friend, you have a direct link, why can't..."

"I'm not doing it Six." Blake said sternly. Her arms folded as she started to walk away.

"But..."

Ilia put a hand on Six's shoulder.

"Don't, I'll explain latter, but Blake and her family is... Not good to say the least." Ilia said, before turning to look at Yang, who was looking after Blake and frozen. "I know I'm new to this girlfriend thing, but you should go after her."

"I think she needs some space." Yang said, looking after the cat girl. Ilia snorted.

"As someone who's know her since they where eight; no. Not this time. You need to make Blake confront things, besides she likes you, if anyone's gonna make her feel better it's you."

"You seem to know a lot about her." Yang commented, looking at Ilia suspiciously.

"I was kinda hoping to be her girlfriend at one point."

"Oh.. Erm..."

"I kind of figured that wasn't going to go anywhere a long time ago. Even if I'm now learning I had more of a chance than I thought..." Ilia trailed of, looking after the retreating Cat Faunus regretfully.

Six put her arm around Ilia and she smiled warmly.

"But I'm better now, so go after her." Ilia said smiling. Yang looked at the two, grinned and turned to run after Blake.

This left Noble team, Ilia, Ruby and Weiss just standing there.

"So Ilia want to see the room?" Six asked as the group set off.

…

"ARGGGHHH!" Six yelled, once again trying to build a bed for a new arrival. Sadly this time she didn't have an AI creating a holographic moc up to work from.

"I swear whoever made this hates all sentient life ever." Kat commented as she threw away the part she'd been trying to fit together.

"I'm telling you we can figure this out." Carter muttered, looking at the manual's pages. Desperately trying to figure something sensible out of the confusing mess that was the instructions.

"And I'm telling you we can't." Six said, scowling over at her ODST helmet.

Dropping the components she'd been holding and walking over ot the helmet. She turned it around to look at the back of the helmet.

Seven's strange Forerunner chip sat inside it's spot. Glowing faintly to indicate Seven was still in there. Although what was keeping her was confusing Six. She was an ancient all powerful super AI, no matter what she was doing it shouldn't take that long.

"I'm sure it will be okay Six." Penny said from the her bed. She was looking over at Carters manual and trying to help. Unfortunately she didn't have the capability's of Seven and wasn't able to achieve much.

"I know... it's just, I'm worried about her okay. She's never done anything like this before..." Six said as she sat the helmet back down on it's shelf.

"You're worried about what could keep her in deep thought for so long aren't you?" Carter asked.

"Yeah, I'm just worried because she didn't explain anything. She just panicked and shut down..."

"Do you think she found anything out about the attack?" Kat asked.

"I don't think so, I mean she would have told me, she was in deep sleep not inactive; if I was in serious danger she would have told me..."

"Well you can't do anything and the world hasn't ended, so we should be fine..."

"I dunno. The amount it took to restock on ammo today was frigging ridiculous." A new voice came from the door.

Six looked around and smiled slightly as she saw Coco leaning against the door.

"Well that happens when someone destroys a dust mine." Six said, smiling as Coco invited herself in, steeping over the various bits of inbuilt bed littering the floor.

"Got someone else moving in?" Coco asked.

"Erm, yeah... She's..."

"I believe Six said her girlfriend was going to be staying with us." Penny said, not noticing the desperate look in Six's eyes or her mouthing for Penny to stop talking.

The speed at which Coco moved was intense. In a second she had moved form the middle of the room to right in front of Six's face (it's worth noting that was an impressive feet, Six's room was far larger than an average room and she was standing pretty far away from where coco had started.)

"Reaaaaallllllllyyy?" Coco asked. Grinning madly mere inches from Six's face.

It would never fail to shock Six how terrified she was in that moment. Coco was a friend and would never hurt her... But Six for some reason wanted to be as far away as possible.

"Erm... Yes?"

"Where is she? I must know everything!" Coco said creepily as she moved closer.

"Hey Six thanks for the towel, man I needed that..."

The room froze. Ilia had walked back in from the old shower area connected to the back of the room (Again, old changing rooms retrofitted for someone to live in.) Wearing nothing but a towel, her wet hair hanging down her back as she walked in.

She then looked to Six and the strange girl she didn't know.

"Erm..." She said slowly. Noticing Six frantically mouthing something to her. (To be precise, Six was mouthing 'it's to late for me, Run, save yourself! Tell our Story!' very, very fast.) And the taller girl's neck snapping around far quicker than should have been possible.

"So... You're the girl..." Coco said slowly.

"No, no, erm..." Six went red, Ilia was doomed.

"Hello! I'm Coco, and you are?" Coco sort of sang as she got nearer to the girl.

"Ilia Amitola..." She said slowly, looking around at Six who was mouthing sorry to her from across the room.

"Coco Adel, I'm a friend of Six's, I must say it's so nice to meet you. I had no idea Six was so lucky." She said, scanning the girl up and down.

"Erm... Really?" Ilia asked, slowly stepping around Coco, who span on the spot very easily to track her.

"Yes, poor girls imensly shy around people."

"Coco shut up." Six said quickly. Staring intently at the girl, adjusting her position on her bed, forming a plan in her bed she hopefully wouldn't have to use.

"Ah come on Six you know it's true, I mean, how did you work up the nerve to talk to her?"

"Going to be honest a part of me wants to know that as well" Kat said, looking over at Six.

"I've told you." Six said, distracting everyone as Ilia mad a bolt for her clothes.

"Not really, you just said you met her in the mansion. All we actually know is you went in and came out with a girlfriend."

Six looked around, she needed an out, she needed something.

"Come on Six, I want to know." Kat said, grinning as Six shrank back.

"I would also like to know." Penny said, an oblivous smile on her face.

"Well, come on Six...!" Coco said.

"Well..."

"I bet it was steamy." Coco wispered to Carter, who nodded and grinned despite himself.

Or at least for a few seconds. The instant Coco finished talking Six had dived at her, springing from the bed like a very embarrassed jacked up frog.

"Coco wait up..." Velvet said, looking into the room to see Six pounding on Coco, a mad expression on her face as she yelled.

"Shut up, shut up!" Over and over again. As Coco laughed maniacally.

"Do I even want to know?"

"No, you don't." Ilia said, having changed back into her jumpsuit and looking over to her. "I'm Ilia, guessing your Velvet?"

"Yes, I'm guessing Six has mentioned me?"

"Yup, nice ears by the way." Ilia said off handedly.

"Thank you, nice to know someone appreciates them." She said, leaning back against the wall as Six continued to pound on the laughing Coco.

"You think we should pull our girlfriends apart?" Ilia asked.

"Oh let them get it out of there Systems." Velvet said, walking over and picking up the manule for the still not built bed. "might as well get something done, lets see, Okay those two bits go together." she said, gesturing with her foot towards the disassembled bed.

The rest of the rooms occupants turned way from the display and set to work on the bed. Electing to fallow Velvets advice and just let this thing blow over.


	42. Chapter 42

Chapter 42

"Shut. Huh, huh... Up... Shut..."

"Six I think she gets it." Carter said, perched on his bed and looking down at the two. A thoroughly bruised (And still laughing) Coco underneath.

"Yeah, also Kat you owe me." Velvet said from Six's bed looking down at the two as Six stood up.

"Okay. I really thought she'd do it." Kat muttered darkly, pulling out some Lien and handing it to Velvet.

"What where you betting on?" Six asked as Coco finally stopped laughing and pulled herself off the floor.

"They bet me on whether Coco would still be conscious or not by the time you where done." Velvet explained, smiling as her girlfriend sat down next to her.

"Yeah... Got to say Six I'm disappointed." Carter said, leaning back against the wall.

"What do you mean? You're disappointed I didn't knock someone unconscious?" Six questioned as she sat down on Ilia's newly built bed next to said girl.

"I'm disappointed because I also added to that bet." He muttered, handing over some of his Lien to the smirking rabbit.

"Did you bet against me?" Six asked, looking over to Ilia.

"Nah, For one thing I wouldn't do that to the reason I'm still alive, secondly I don't have anything to bet." She explained, grinning. Coco looked over to her.

"Wait, reason I'm alive?"

"She may have saved my life... We got stuck... She kept us safe long enough to get us out."

"Seriously? Nice work Six." Coco said, looking over at the Spartan legitimately impressed.

"It was pretty cool." Ilia said, the marks on her face and arms going pink.

"Thanks." Six said, smiling weekly as she flopped over. She then turned to look at Coco.

"So why where you out here? Just been shopping I assume?" Six said, looking down at the bags Coco and Velvet had dragged in.

"Yeah, we where just going to go out and get food, the place we where thinking of going to is doing a good deal on group party's this week, thought you might like the chance to eat out." Coco explained.

"Erm... I mean I'm up for it?" Six said, looking around at everyone else.

"Sure... I mean Velvet just won most of out money..." Carter said, looking over at the Rabbit girl who grinned awkwardly.

"I can help pay for it." Six said, thinking about that large number still sitting in her back account (Technically Six had given access to it to Carter and Kat as well, but the advantage of never having owned a lot of stuff was that you didn't feel the need to get a lot of stuff, outside of some sleep wear and day clothes the group really hadn't spent much.)

"Okay, but where halving the bill, I don't care how rich you are." Coco said with a smirk, getting up to leave.

"Oh, and you might want to put something nice on, it's not ultra fancy but that may be just a little to casual..." Coco added, looking at everyone else. They where all dressed in the same thing as they had been when the left for Atlas a week ago (It was only supposed to be two days and they where clean on when they left)

"Well I'm fucked, I don't own anything else." Ilia commented, looking over at Coco who grinned.

"Really? Well come with me, I'm sure I can find you something" She said, gently taking Ilias hand. The Faunus girl looked at Six quickly.

"You can trust her with that." Six said, realising she was probably going to have to step it up a bit from what she normal wore if Coco was picking Ilia's outfit.

"Great, we'll met up at the Air Dock in half an hour." Coco said, bending down and picking up her bags again.

"See you there!" Velvet added as they lead Ilia to there room.

…

"Where are they?" Six asked, leaning against the outer wall of the docks dressed in pair tight pare of shorts, her running shoes and a low cut tank top covered by a light weight hoodie she hadn't zipped up. Her long hair tied up behind it in a long ponnytail.

"Still getting ready probably, we where relatively quick on the whole getting ready thing." Kat said, standing next to Carter and looking nice in a pale blue skirt, a dull grey T-shirt and a Bomber Jacket she'd brought up in Atlas (Apparently her favourite trainer had worked in the Pelican development department and they still wore the things on their days off) She's also gotten a hair cut while up in Atlas and now sported a Pixie cut.

"That's probably it, though they should have aloud more time for preparing and settings proper meet up time." Carter said from next to Kat. He had dressed a decent shirt with a clean set of trousers on. It wasn't a complicated outfit but at least he pulled it off well.

"Sorry where late, didn't realise five minutes was pushing it." Coco said from the side. Grinning from ear to ear as she and Velvet walked around the corner.

"Where's Ilia?" Six asked, noting a lack of said Faunus girl.

"Nice to see you to." Coco said, a playful scowl on her face as she stood in front of the group.

While Noble Team had kept things relativity simple Coco and Velvet seamed to have gone all out on their outfits (not that that really surprised anyone)

Coco had ditched her usual leggings and was wearing a black mini dress with an overlarge belt, the Beret she wore still perched on her head.

Velvet was now wearing a pair of short shorts, a three quarter sleeve almost skin tight shirt with a shoulder-less stop with a picture of a white Rabbit head in the centre on top of that.

"You're late." Cardin said, looking at the two who snorted.

"Yeah, sorry about that, finding something that fit Ilia was harder than expected..." Coco said, whistling as the Chameleon girl walked out.

"Hey I think it worked." Coco commented, grinning as Six's eyes practically bulged out of her skull.

It was weird, Ilia was now covering more of her body and yet she looked better somehow, or at least she did to Six. She was wearing a pair of black leggings that hugged her like a second skin, had a pair of Daisy Duke denim shorts over those. She was also wearing a tight fitting Tank top.

"You like it?" She asked Six, who nodded dumbly in resonse.

"Hey we got to navel Gals." Coco said happily, gesturing to Six and Ilia.

 _Well she'd technically correct._

 _Yeah, except we're only just showing our navel, Ilia is showing a lot more than that._

 _Coco is still right._

"Well now that we're all together lets go eat!" Coco said, enthusiastically pushing Six and Coco towards the airship. Kat, Carter and Penny followed behind (Penny was still wearing her normal clothes as they where actually clean on that day)

…

"Come on Six, I did a good job and you know it." Coco said, grinning as she nudged Six in the ribs.

"Yeah, I know, she's right next to me." Six said simply. Pointing to Ilia, who was literally sitting right next to her.

"I know, but it's still true." Coco said, sitting down next to Six before looking over to Ilia.

"First time seeing Vale?" She asked, noting Ilia's amazed expression.

"Sorta." Ilia said. It wouldn't be her first time on the ground in Vale, but she'd only gotten in there the first time by Sneaking in on an air freighter. It had not been pleasant, shut up inside a cramped box for seven hours until she finally got dumped out at the meeting point.

"Well its a beaut isn't it." Coco said, grinning as she looked out over her home city.

"Yeah... it is..." Ilia muttered. She looked out at the town bellow her. She knew what was going to happen, something was coming for the torment...

"You okay?" Six asked.

"I, what, yeah, sure I am." Ilia said, putting a grin on her face again as she looked out. "Just, I've never seen it like this before..."

"Yeah, No city ever looks better then when you're in the air." Six said, thinking back to the assault on New Alexandria it was weird, it was barely five months ago, but it was so long for her. Even from the air and on fire it was beautiful, not like on the ground, where it was... Well a city.

"Well enjoy it while it lasts, we're landing in a few minutes." Coco said before she walked of to talk with Kat about her jacket.

…

"Wow, that is a good deal." Penny said, reading the sign on the restaurants door. The deal was an insanely good one, the seven of them could eat out for the sort of price two would normally pay.

"Yeah... why is it so cheep?" Six asked as they walked in.

"They've got a new branch opening, they know their not going to get as many people in here so they lowered the price to get some impulse eaters in." Coco explained as they waited for someone to get them a table. Not that that was going to be hard, out of all the table only three of them had anyone at them.

Six looked around, noticing something about two of the patrons.

"Jorge, Lucy?" Six asked. The two looked up and smiled as they noticed Six.

"Hey, you eating here too guys?" Jorge asked, smiling as he looked a Six's group.

"Coco invited and I'm not turning down nice food." Six said in response.

"I take it these are your friends?" The man sitting opposite Jorge asked.

Six looked him over. He was defiantly getting on. Not completely past it but defiantly the wrong side of fifty. He was also tall and had pale blond hair that was starting to grey. Physically he looked like he had once been incredibly powerful but now had gone slightly to sea,

"Yes Mr Polaire..."

"Oh come on Jorge, you can use our first names, you're going to be family after all." The woman sitting next to 'Polaire' said. Grinning at the Spartan.

She like the other man was blond, a much darker shade with grey weaved into it. Her head also sported a pair of Polar bear ears poking out of it. Add that to the similar height and build Six suspected she knew who these people where.

"Oh lay of, he's trying to be polite." Lucy butted in. Smiling at the abashed look on Jorge's face. She then turned to look at Six and her group. "But yeah, there the ones who helped me out... Well Six Carter and Kat did" She said pointing to each of them in turn. "The one with the red hairs Ilia, she's Six's girlfriend and the other three..."

"Name's Coco." Said girl said, smiling as she nudged Velvet.

"My name is Penny, it's a pleasure to meet you!" The ginger girl said, beaming as she looked at them.

"I'm Velvet, I'm with Coco." Velvet said, giving a small bow.

"It's nice to meet all of you, come on sit with us." The man (Who was pretty obviously Lucy's dad) Said, gesturing for the waiter to bring the table next to them closer.

Getting the point the staff pushed the tables together and the group sat down next to them.

"So you're the 'Noble Team' Jorge has told us about?" Lucy's Mom asked.

"Yes we are, I'm Noble Six... that's also my name by the way Mrs..."

"Ursus dear, It's nice to meet you, I hear you helped our daughter out with that dreaded Griffin." She said, shuddering at the thought of the monster.

"Yeah, though it was Fin's plan... hey where is he?" Six said, suddenly realising she hadn't seen the Hunter since they got back to Beacon.

"Talking with Ozpin, no idea what it's about." Carter said.

"I'm sure the man will be fine, The way he dealt with that Griffin I'm sure he's tough as hell, reminds me of me in my prime." Lucy's dad said. Ursus rolled her eyes.

"Sure he does."

"Are you doubting the great Daniel Polaire?" He asked, Buffing out his chest as best he could.

"Yes, yes I am." Ursus said with a small smile. Before looking over tot he group. "Honestly you should see him when Port shows up for dinner, those two will bore you silly about those tusks we have over our fireplace."

"That hunt was long and hard won!" Daniel proclaimed. Lucy snorted.

"Well you're right about it being long." She said simply, before bursting out laughing, followed by the rest of her family.

"Oh I have missed this..." Ursus said, smiling as she looked at Six and the other Spartans. "Thank you, when the ship was lost... Well I thought I was never going to see my daughter again... Now I have, and I'm going to be a grand Mother!" She said, beaming at the Spartans.

"We where happy to help." Kat said, smiling back.

"We would do nothing less." Carter added.

Six wanted to annswer, she did, but she couldn't, she was to overcome. She'd helped people before, but she'd never had time to stay, she'd never seen this before, not in anyone elses face.

She'd helped this family, sure she'd helped a lot in the war and was helping her own as she spoke, but, actually getting to see what she'd done... Seeing how much of an impact helping out had made with just these two people. It was nice. It was nice to finally see it.

"Your more than welcome." Six finally said, rubbing her eyes to keep the tears in.


	43. Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Name.

That evening would defiantly go down as one of the best for Six. For one thing the food was delicious.

Six had found some UNSC military rations a few weeks ago. Out of curiosity she'd eaten it (They where meant to last forever provided the packaging was undamaged.) Her conclusions was she could have eaten the wrapper and experienced a nicer flavour.

This place however... Six honestly felt like she was in heaven.

The gammon she's ordered was amazing. So amazing she gorged it in under a minute and thoroughly embarrassed herself. The chips had just the right amount of salt to make them taste nice, the vegetables weren't suddenly the thing she had to eat because her health demanded it. This time... It was tolerable!

As they ate the conversation inevitably went to Jorge and Lucy's baby. The first thing to happen was Coco and Velvet's reaction to it when Ursus asked Lucy if she wanted to get married before or after the birth.

"Hold up!" Coco said, looking at Lucy in amazement. "Your going to have a kid?"

Velvet elbowed Coco in the ribs for that as Lucy let out a small laugh.

"Yes, This man went and got me Pregnant, not that I'm complaining." She said, playfully poking Jorge in the ribs.

"Well I'm glad someone did." Daniel muttered.

"You Dad, most parent's would be less happy over their daughter getting pregnant." Lucy pointed out snarkily over her fish.

"Lucy you're thirty nine." Ursus commented, looking over at her daughter.

"So what, was your love hinged on me giving you grand kids?"

"No off course it didn't. I mean I'm ecstatic over the fact I'm going to get one, I just thought it was too late..." Ursus said, looking down at the ground and smiling slightly.

"Oh come on Mom, would I do that?" Lucy said a grin emerging onto her face. "It just took a while to find the right guy. I'm not like you, I didn't get pregnant at Nineteen for fucks sake."

"Not the time dear." Ursus said simply as she took a sip from her drink.

Six looked over at her, a thought springing to mind.

"Hang on, Lucy had you ever, I mean, had you... before Jorge?" The Spartan asked, enjoying watching Jorge and Lucy going red.

"I'm not answering that."

"So that would be a no." Kat commented slyly.

"Like I said, I'm not answering, although I can say Jorge that armor is not built for making babies in." Lucy said.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked as he looked over his future son in law.

"She means that Mjolnir Armor isn't quick or easy to take off by yourself." Carter explained.

"Don't I know it, when it takes five hours to get ready the mood tends to get killed rather badly." Lucy said, Six snorted loudly over her food.

"Sorry... But geese dude really?" Six asked.

"Hey You do it faster." Jorge said, before realising that was a bad move as Six flashed her armor on, before flashing it off again, swaying slightly as Ilia grabbed her shoulder to stop her from falling over.

"I walked into that."

"Yeah you did." Kat smirked as she finished off her chicken.

"Can we stop talking abut baby making please!" Velvet blurted, her face the colour of the tomatoes in her salad.

"Yes lets." Coco said, trying to hide the smile so she could support her Girlfriend.

"I think that would be appropriate, although I'd like to keep the subject on Babies, Have you had any ideas for names?" Ursus asked.

"Erm... No, still a bit in shock to be honest." Lucy said simply.

"Yeah, I can safely say I never expected this to happen to me." Jorge said. Six knew what he was thinking about, It was rare for Spartans to retire and even rarer for them to have family's. Especially if you where as dedicated and loyal as Jorge was.

"Well does anyone have any suggestions?" Ilia asked, looking around that table.

"Erm..." Basically everyone said.

"I have, one suggestion..." Kat muttered; looking down at the ground like she was regretting speaking.

"Well go for it." Daniel said, not getting why Kat looked so sad.

"Well, For a boy, maybe Thom..." Kat muttered.

The Remnant natives didn't understand why every Spartan looked at her in shock.

The only Spartan who wasn't as effected by the suggestion was Six... Mostly because the only reason Six knew who they where in the first place was because of the Thom-A293.

He was Noble Six before Six was. She didn't know much about his death or how it happened, all she knew was that every other member of Noble team did.

"Kat..."

"He shouldn't be forgotten." She said, her eyes going resolute as she looked up at everyone sitting at the table.

"Who, who was this Thom?" Lucy asked, looking at Jorge.

"Well, we said we where going to tell your parent's before the wedding, I guess this counts..." Jorge said as the group of Spartans began explaining exactly where they'd come from.

…

"I, Wow... You really picked a unique one didn't you?" Ursus said, looking at the group of Spartans with new eyes.

"Yes, I mean, I knew, but I did think he'd taken one too many knocks to the head when he first told me." Lucy explained, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment.

"I have one question for you Jorge, Will that dedication you showed to Reach go to my Daughter?" Daniel asked, staring intently at the man. Who stood up and declared:

"I show dedication to everything I care about, and I assure you I will not let her down, I'd do what I did on Reach a hundred times if I had to."

"Oh you." Lucy said as he sat down, leaning on him and grinning slightly. "That was so cheesy I think it could help make my dessert." She said as she pointed down at her cheesecake.

"Cheesy as it may be It's the truth." He said simply, smiling as he began to eat the Ice cream he'd ordered (Six had insisted he give it a try, every other female member of the table's begging had gotten him to choose it)

"So, just to clarify you where going to tell me that at some point." Ilia said, looking over at Six who suddenly felt awkward.

"I, Well yes, but how do you even set about starting on something like that?" Six said, looking at Ilia, not noticing Coco looking over at Six.

"Hey, Coco!" Velvet said, snapping Six's attention around as Coco stared harder at her.

"I'm sorry." She said. Looking over at Coco who was leaning back in her chair.

"It makes sense, why you where so... You." She muttered, looking over at Six.

"I, I know and I'm sorry... I meant to it's just..."

"I know, how do you start." Coco muttered, looking down at the table darkly.

"She didn't mean anything by it." Velvet said, gently reaching her arm around her girlfriends shoulder.

"It makes so much sense now, but seriously girl, why did it take Six months for you to tell us this?"

"I, wait; it's march?" Six asked, looking at Coco in shock.

"Erm, yes? That's not I meant though."

"Coco, I, look, I'm sorry okay, I didn't want to hide it from you, for most of that time I thought Reach and everyone on it was lost, now, I have everyone back, as soon as I can get to Menagerie I'm bringing Emile back. I, I care about you okay, I care about everyone and If I hurt you by not telling you this then..."

 _Glomp._

"You're forgiven idiot, Now Ilia get in on this while I've got her trapped." Coco said, looking over at the Faunus who snorted and joined in the hug.

"Wait, you need to get over to Menagerie?" Ursus asked Carter, who explained while Six was being hugged.

"Yes, Simply put we need to look for our last teammate over their." He explained.

"Well, Ghira does owe me... I'll get on to him later and see if I can get you acess."

"I, what?" Six asked as Ilia let go and resumed devouring her cake.

"Well you are talking to one of the people who knew old Ghira way back in his school days, I saved his neck more times than I can count, I think I should be able to get you a trip over."

"I..." Six said as she felt tears well up in her eyes.

"Think nothing of it, You're family now and I help out my family."

…

"So Fin..." Ozpin said, looking up at the Hunter.

For once he wasn't having a talk with one of the people Six brought back with her on her trips in his office... Mostly because he was fairly confident Fin would break the floor and crash through every level in the tower... Assuming he even fit in the elevator.

"... From what little Six told me before she ran off, you have a problem with Merlot, is that correct?"

 _He killed my Bond Brother; he must pay for this crime._

"What do you want for this?" Ozpin asked, although he suspected he knew...

 _He must die._

"Is that really going to make anything better?"

 _I do not know, I just know it is the only thing I want to do._

"What if you didn't?" Ozpin asked, trying to figure a way out of this mess, but sadly he wasn't seeing one if he couldn't reason with this creature.

 _The longer he remains alive the longer my brother's memory is tarnished._

"I do not believe that, I have lost many people before now and it has hurt me greatly, but if I sought vengeance for all of them there would be no one left on this planet."

 _You would not need to Ozpin, I see what has happened to you, you are not like other humans and my brothers death is not the same._

"Please do explain." Ozpin said, a plan forming in his mind.

 _My brother could not fight back, he was killed while his fe refused to even be in the same room, I saw it all, I will not let this man live._

"So you will kill him in the same way he killed your brother?"

 _No._

"Then what do you plan?" An interested Ozpin asked, looking at the Hunter who held up it's plasma canon the way someone may rise a fist in a revolution.

 _He must be given a chance to fight, if he kills me in combat than I have done all I can to avenge my brother, if I fail to do so... then I am like him. Most of my kind would do that, and I cannot guarantee a fair fight, however I will show him how I do things, I have to, if I can't then... Then I don't think when we meet again I'd be able to face my brother..._

"I understand why you feel this way. However, I must ask, what do you intend to do after you kill Merlot?" Ozpin asked, wondering if the Hunter had a plan.

 _There are other hunters and lost minds trapped within the Covenant, I will free the ones who will listen._

"And, suppose you died before you had the chance, what would happen to them?"

…

"I understand what you want, he has done horrible things to Humanity and your family, he is paying for those crimes right now as he rots in prison."

 _He will get out._

"And then I will not stop you if you feel so strongly about this, however, Will you wait until he's done, will you try to save more lives before you seek vengeance? Because believe me the later is not as good as it seams."

 _..._

…

"I was told to come here by Adam..." The nervous White fang member asked, scared by the floating red orb in front of him.

It was weird, he was bigger than it, but this jellyfish like thing was scaring him down to his core.

It wasn't like anyone else was even in the room, it was just this orb and the weird black metal machine in the middle.

"Yes, I asked for assistance." The orb said, the voice was an odd mixture of inviting and terrifying.

"What with...?" The White fang man asked, looking at the room.

"I have found many things from the Forerunners, they have left me so many in fact I have adapted my plans around them, I have something that should make you all better and stronger."

"That is wonderful..." He said slowly, figuring out why he was in the room as the door locked shut behind him.

"Yes, it is." The voice said, not bothering to hide it's intentions as an orange glow came from the strange devise.

The poor grunt was not even given time to scream as the machine hit him, his body torn apart and reforming in an instant.

"It is impressive My Lady." Turak said as he walked into the room, unlocking the door and looking at the metal creature in front of him.

"Yes it is, My kind called them Promethean's, they where out soldiers, a very clever member of our ranks figured out how to create them from the most worthless beings." Salem's orb said as it floated over to the new creature.

It stood about as tall as he had before on thin metal limbs that floated from the main body. His head accented by metal triangles that floated off of it's back.

"It is magnificent." Turak said as he admired the creation.

"Thank you Turak, it is nice to see my work is apreciated, however we will need more than this if we are to make full use of them."

"Do you wish me to lure all the White Fang here?" Turak asked.

"No, one loyal soldier can be lssot without notice, too many and it will stand out, no we will need more than that; tell me, which kingdom is the least well guarded on this planet?"

"I'm afraid I do not know My Lady." Turak said, bowing in shame.

"It is no crime, you are not of this world after all. I however, I have walked this planet for millennia, and I know who has the weakest defences." The Orb said before suddenly turning to look at Turak. "Get your men ready, your going to Menagerie."


	44. Chapter 44

Chapter 44 Oh for fucks sake.

Six was convinced about one thing two days after the meeting with Lucy's parent's: She could not thank them enough.

It said something that Noble Team was already on the airship heading over to Menagerie, Really it had been amazingly fast, technically the only reason they hadn't left sooner was because Jorge and Lucy had to wait for the registration office to open.

Granted Glynda had given them the death glare when they told them they where leaving again and missing even more classes, however, this was the last trip so hopefully this should be the last time they needed to do this.

She wasn't satisfied with that but none of the member's of Noble Team actually cared what she thought. They did have respect for Glynda, just not enough to abandon Emile. Every member of Noble team was sure of one thing: They where getting Emile back, nothing was going to stop them.

So they where at the pad before the Air ship landed and had bolted on board before the pilot could announce they where there.

The only thing that was upsetting to Noble team was the amount of people not coming with them. They only had permission for the four Spartans in the group to go visit. Six wanted Ilia to come on the grounds she knew the terrain; unfortunately the fact she'd been there before was the main reason she couldn't go.

Apparently Menagerie had a White Fang members on the island out in the open and that meant bad things for the defector. As such Ilia had to stay behind so she didn't get stabbed in the back.

Lucy also wasn't coming; mostly because Jorge had begged her to. It wasn't that he didn't think she'd be helpful, It wasn't that she couldn't hold her own in a fight and it defiantly wasn't because she was a girl.

The fact was she had there child to think about, as much as Lucy didn't like it she had to think about it and factor it into her decisions. Six remembered the argument, it hadn't been nice to hear.

…

"No! I am not staying here cowering for you!" Lucy yelled as Jorge backed up.

"It's not like that, we, we have a kid coming and..." It was impressive that Jorge was cowering from someone a foot shorter than he was.

"Shouldn't the kid have a father!" Lucy had yelled back, stamping her foot in frustraightion.

"I can't leave Emile their! He was my best friend and..."

"So let me help!"

"Lucy we have no idea what might happen..." Carter said, butting in to look at the Polar Bear Faunus. "...And he's not asking you to stay because he thinks you can't handle it! He's asking you to stay because he wants his child to have a life."

"We're, We're Spartans..." Six said, speaking slowly from the corner. "... We, we don't normally get this... I never had a chance before I got here, neither did Kat."

"What are you, how is this relevant!?" Lucy yelled, rounding on the purple haired girl who actually shrank away from her, a rare sight for a Spartan.

"She wants you to understand!" Kat said suddenly, butting in and standing in front of her Teammate. "Listen, the Augmentation process went wrong for us, badly wrong! Before Seven fixed us neither of us could get pregnant at all, having a family really wasn't an option! Please understand, He wants you to live, please understand this..."

"I, I get it, but I can help, why shouldn't I?"

"Because we've lost people before..." Carter explained, looking at Lucy with an icey glare. "Six may be the highest number in Noble Team but there have been more than six members."

"I know, Thom you mentioned him earlier." Lucy scowled. It wasn't that she didn't see where they where coming from...

"Thom died because of us..." Carter said, looking down at the ground. "...I wish, I wish we could have done more for him, for all of them; but we can't. Now we can and... I don't think any of us want to lose anyone else, not again."

"I, I... Fine." Lucy said, marching over to Jorge. "But understand this, If this happens again I will never forgive you, save your friend and make it back."

"I, I..." Jorge stammered before Six stood up.

"He will." Six said, looking over at Lucy, determination burning in her eyes. "I guarantee it."

"Make sure that you do. However, You're going the day after tomorrow."

"Erm, why, we can go tomorrow..." Six began to say.

"You aren't going anywhere till you sign that form, when you get back we can have the ceremony." Lucy said, smirking as she took Jorge by the arm.

"Yes, yes we will." Jorge said, smiling as he walked of with her.

…

"How long until we reach Menagerie?" Six asked the Pilot (she was currently taking the position of Co-Pilot)

"About an hour, you must really like this friend of yours if you want to get over there that quickly." The pilot noted, looking at Six who nodded.

"Yeah, He was going to gave everything for me... I'm going to return the favour." Six said as her last day on Reach flashed back into focus.

Six hadn't been having the same nightmares she used to, she had been able to stop them from coming with the mantra 'I'll find you' Because it was true. Six was and had, found all of them. She wasn't scared of seeing them die any more because she knew they weren't dead. But still, the part of her head she hated her never stopped thinking: What if this was the end for them?

If that was true then Emile's would stay with her. Partly because it was just so him; He'd been stabbed through the chest and even that hadn't stopped him from getting one last kill in. And...

Six would never admit this to anyone, but she would have left him behind that day. He was going to take what ended up being her place.

The Mach gun had originally been Emile's place, it made sense; The AI had chosen Six, she had given it to the Autumn but Six had intended to board. Emile hadn't. Emile had looked into the hell that was Reach and decided to give everything to it. He'd elected to stay behind to make sure the mission continued... But Six...

Six was going to run. She was fully planing to get on the ship and abandon her friend to death.

Now this was stupid, she was feeling retroactively guilty for something Emile had decided; On some level she knew that was stupid, Spartans did there job and Emile had chosen to give everything. Her place in this plan was simple, leave and make sure humanity lived, give her all for it some other day if she had to.

While that may have made sense at the time... It now disgusted Six. Emile was her friend and she had been planing to leave him to a death she knew first hand had been unpleasant.

Maybe it was because so much of her effort over the last two months had been to save her teammates, but now the idea of leaving him behind... It made her feel sick.

"I'll get it right this time, I know I will." Six said, clenching her fist's tightly.

…

 _45 minutes later_

…

"Hey what's that?" The Pilot asked, looking into the far distance.

"What, you mean that large floating thing?" Six asked, before turning over to look at the Pilot. "That's not meant to be there?"

"No off course not." The Pilot said, leaning forward to look at the thing.

"Hey is it? We need to move!" Six yelled as she saw the ship turn around to face the airship Noble team was in. The large glowing orange front lighting up.

The pilot tried, he really tried, but sadly he wasn't able to move out of the way fast enough as the ship opened fire and tore their ship apart.

Six's armor flashed up in a second as the ship exploded.

Six fell fast and hit the water bellow with a sudden crash, She quickly forced herself up out of the water and looked around, The other three Spartans broke the water.

"I, Guys?" Six asked.

"Yeah we're good, also minor question, **WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!** " Kat yelled, looking over at the ship.

"No idea, but Emile's over there." Six said, looking at the ship.

"You think we should go save him?" Jorge asked.

Kat looked at him as if he'd just said the most insane thing in the universe,

"Are you crazy? We should go help him! Like he needs saving from that."

"Agreed, lets go..." Carter said, turning around and seeing that Six had already began swimming towards the island.

…

Noble team swam to a small cave just off sore of the island, the kind you wouldn't be able to see from the mainland as the cliffs angle would make it impossible to see without falling off.

"What the hell's going on?" Six asked as she looked up at the mainland. The closer they'd gotten the worse everything had seen. They couldn't spend to long staring at the island because they'd be seen; but they had seen something, specifically they'd seen Elites standing on the edge of the cliffs.

"No idea, but clearly the Covenant found this place before we did." Carter muttered, looking for a way out of the cave.

"But what for?" Kat asked. Six snorted as she moved towards the exit of the cave.

"Do they need a reason? It's the Covenant." She said simply as she set off.

"No, but the last time they attacked they did, Think about it; The world just lost a huge source of Dust because of their last attack, what do they gain from doing this?" Kat asked, grabbing Six's shoulders to stop her from walking up the tunnel.

"I don't know, maybe they just want to kill people, look we need to go Emile's up there and..."

"In the extremely unlikely event he's dead then we can't do anything. However, given the fact it's him we can safely assume he's not, ergo he can wait while we think up a plan." Kat said simply.

"I, I, fine, what are we doing?" Six asked, looking around.

"We need more information about what's up there, Six can you..." Carter began but never finished because at long last Seven jolted back to life.

"I'm back! I'm back!" The AI said, bursting out of Six's helmet to look around frantically; mostly looking the same as before, the notable difference being the fact she'd changed her hair so it more closely resembled Yang's.

"Seven!" Six said happily, looking at the AI.

"Yes, me, I know, look I have discovered something really important... Oh, we're not, we're not in the Cave, we're in a different cave... And the other's are here, Hi you must be Jorge. Sorry it took so long, but you will not believe what I found out!" The AI cried, a notable edge of panic in her voice as she spoke.

"What did you find out?" Six asked before Carter interrupted her.

"Not now, Seven we have a situation, Where at Menagerie and something..."

"You're already here! That's great, we may be able to salvage this mess yet!" Seven cried happily.

"Mess, wait do you know what's going on?" Six asked, tilting her head to look at the AI.

"Yeah, I've been diving for ages, Something wasn't right with that Cinder Fall; and boy was I right, I followed that rabbit and man it was wild, I've bounced around the world so many times, I had to hack an old Forerunner satellite to get a signal over a new area and what I found... I, I..."

"Seven you're overloading!" Six cried as the AI began to flicker in and out of reality.

"Gah! Sorry, I, look bad things are happening here and you have to stop it."

"Why what are they trying to do?" Carter asked. Seven slowly turned to look at him.

"The Covenant forces on this island, they're looking to capture the entire islands population, pretty soon that ship above us will have enough people on board to head back to her castle and when we do they will turn them into an army."

"How? Brainwashing?" Six asked, wondering how you could convert and entire island.

"Erm, It's kinda like brainwashing; However, I think horribly mutated and converted into a mechanical monster is more accurate."

"We have to stop this." Six said, gritting her teeth together as she went to leave.

"We still have no plan Six." Carter pointed out.

"Well I do, Find Emile, Get on board that ship and kill every single Covenant fuck on board." Six said.

The rest of Noble team knew this plan wasn't even close to being well thought out; but they had nothing better and time was now a factor now; they had to work fast. Better to act now and wing it than figure out a plan to late.

"Come on Noble." Carter said, getting up and heading to follow Six.


	45. Chapter 45

Chapter 45 We are boned in every sense of the word.

Despite the fact all of Noble team went up to the surface Six was the only one to leave the cave to scout out the area, mostly because she was the smallest and could summon a suit of power armour to protect her.

Six suspected that if the town hadn't been raided recently it would have been a very nice place to be, even if it was a bit cramped, every building looked just a little to close together, a lot of the stalls seamed jammed in the most unusual places. It was odd to say the least.

Although the elements that made it more unusual where defiantly the Covenant Forces Six knew weren't meant to be there.

Most of them where congregated near the centre of town. Specifically underneath the giant ship that had shot them down.

If Six had to guess (based on what little information she'd been able to pick up about them) She would say this was probably a Forerunner ship.

It was huge, shaped like a giant sword floating in the air, with the 'Hilt' acting as the back end with the tip of the blade as the front, also judging by the glowing orange energy pipes Six suspected that was wear the gun was.

Most of the Covenant forces where guarding the gravity well the ship was producing. Occasionally moving out of the way to allow A Brute to throw in a prisoner.

Six's first instincts where to run out and try to kill of the forces but Seven had several arguments against that.

"Six no! I know you want to help but if you cause a panic down here the ship will leave and we will not be able to save the ones already on board, we have to be careful."

"Then what do you suggest I do? I can't just watch this!" Six hissed as a screaming child with a scaly tail was thrown into the lift in the same way one might discard the wrapper for a snack bar of some kind.

"We save them later, We need Emile and to warn the other survivors." Seven said.

Growling Six nodded and looked to Seven.

"Okay, where is Emile, you got a position on him?" Six asked as the AI nodded.

"Yes, He's in the jungle. Specifically he's here." Seven said, a series of cordinets and an icon appearing on her hud's maps.

"Okay Noble, Six find Emile and help everyone still on the ground." Carter said over the radio.

"Sir, what are you planing?"

"Me, Kat and Jorge are going to get on board that carrier, they need the prisoners alive so they should be safe, if we can get on the ship and take it over we can save them, but we don't know how much time we have so we need to move in quickly."

"But, we came here together to save him..." Six muttered.

"Six, Emile would hate us if we left these people behind, go find him, we'll get on board that ship and save them." Kat said.

"I, Okay, We'll take back the island, Seven give me Emile's location, they need you more than I do."

"Six..." Jorge began.

"Jorge, its an unknown ship and Seven can map it out, take her and get going!" Six said, retreating back to the cave.

"You really want to be flying blind down here?" Carter asked Six as she pulled of her helmet and handed it to him.

"I'll be fine, now get going, Like you said we don't have much time."

Six then darted out of the cave, she needed to find Emile fast.

…

"So how are we getting on board?" Jorge asked as him Kat and Carter crept towards the gravity well.

Carter didn't speak, he just pointed to a set of Banshee's lying on the ground a way from the ship.

"If you stay low before making a loop around we should be able to get on board without being noticed." Seven explained, the helmet being worn by Kat as they moved forward.

"Okay, Noble team lets save those people." Carter said as he slipped into one of the banshees and took off.

…

Six did not feel safe.

As a Spartan she was used to this feeling but being used to it didn't make it better.

Every time she put a foot down wrong, every branch she crushed, she was sure it was going to cause a panic. She looked over her shoulder, in the very far distance she could see three banshee's flying away; with any luck she'd be able to help out soon.

Six knew the main thing she needed to do was be quite and discreet.

"No, no, someone help! Please!"

 _We need to._

 _No, just no._

Six burst into the trees her hammer raised... Only to not see anything other than a small device sending out audio and an Elite with a knife rammed though its neck.

"I, what?" Six said, looking down at the body.

"Do we need to get the knife back?" A small voice asked from behind a bush.

"Does that thing look alien to you?" Another one said.

"How do we know it's not a trap?" Yet another voice whispered.

"I can hear you." Six said bluntly, turning towards where she could here the voices.

"Gah!"

"Well you suck."

"Guys she's coming near!"

Six pulled the bush back, looking down and her heart half broke and half laughed.

The group which had set this 'Trap' where children, if Six had to guess then they where barley older than ten.

There where three of them, two boys and one girl, all of them where dirty and looked scared.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Six said simply, bending down to be more on there level. "What happened here?"

"You're not going to hurt us?" One of the boys asked.

"Of course she is, she's a human!" The girl scowled.

"You don't know that!" The other Boy blurted.

"Yes I do!"

"No you don't!"

"Yes I..."

"Word of advice." Six said, sticking her hands over their mouths while their other friend looked on. "When in a dangerous situation, keep quite unless you want to be found, now, I know their taking people, when did this start? Has the ship left yet? And do you know anyone called Emile?"

"Why should we..." The girl started to say.

"Because I want to help." Six said simply.

"They came a week ago!" the First boy blurted.

"Traitor." The girl muttered darkly.

"They just started taking people, we had to run as fast as we could to get away." The second boy added.

"I understand. I want names, I cant keep thinking of you by physical characteristics, I need more than that."

"I'm Sam, and why do you want Emile!?" The first boy blurted. Now knowing he was called Sam Six took a closer look at him. He was heavily tanned and had a pair of bird wings growing out of his back, even if they clearly weren't big or strong enough to allow for flight.

"Yeah why do you want Emile!" The girl cried.

Six looked over to the other boy, a clear: 'For the love of god what is her deal?' Look on her face.

"I'm Tom, and she's Angela." He explained.

Tom was a dark skinned boy with a set of razor sharp fangs and weird patches of black fur growing on the back of his hands and neck.

Angela was short, her hair a dark shade of green and had a scaly tail bursting out from underneath her skirt.

"Why do you want Emile!" Angela cried.

"I'm a friend." Six shot back. "Also I want to help everyone on this island because even if I did hate Faunus, which I don't; I defiantly hate the Covenant more."

"Hang on, only Emile calls them that." Tom said, looking at Six in shock.

"Yeah, we know each other, do you know where he is?" Six asked, concerned over how much Angela was growling at her (Revealing she had fangs while she did it.)

"Why do you!"

"Where is he!" Six cried, grabbing her head in frustration.

"We don't know, we got separated..." Sam explained. "He was teaching a class when they arrived, he told us to run..."

"So you did, good. But we need to find him, will you come with me or do I have to abandon you?" Six asked, not wanting to leave the children behind, she couldn't say she knew them but given how most of them looked like they hadn't eaten in the week since the ship arrived and would probably fall into any given trap that was set for them. In fact she suspected that was exactly what had happened, although she had to praise whoever had used the knife.

"I'll go." Tom said in an instant.

"Tom!" Angela cried just as Sam said.

"I'll also go."

"Okay, lets move." Six said, standing up to continue towards where Seven had said Emile last was.

"Hey, I'm not going with you!" Angela cried. Six turned to look at her.

"We're really doing this?" Six asked, groaning as she took a step back.

"Angela we need to go, we stand a better chance with someone bigger than us." Tom said.

"Yeah I'm with Tom, come on we need to move." Sam said, scowling as Angela stopped the ground angrily.

"No, I'm not, _Hey!_ " Angela cried as Six rolled her eyes and grabbed Angela under her arms and throwing her over her shoulders.

"Someone get the knife." Six said as she summoned her armor to her body, giving Angela the shock of her life as She was suddenly jolted a foot into the air.

"Hey no one touches my Knife!" Angela cried from six's back. Six her head to look at her.

"Then will you come with us?" She asked.

Angela pouted but nodded.

"Good, now lets go, the longer it takes to find Emile the harder it's going to be." Six said, it was unreasonable to assume he was going to stay where he was when she started, the less time he had to move the easier he was to find.

Six headed off as the small kids followed her. Tom was looking up at her with big eyes, his focus given entirely to her, Sam kept glancing at Angela, who was giving Six a death glare.

 _Just want to check that knife can't get through the suit can it?_

 _Erm, lets not find out... And no it can't, doesn't mean we should give her a reason to try._

 _I completely agree with that sentiment._

…

Meanwhile in the air the rest of Noble team was still on track and had landed on the top deck of the ship.

"Okay, we need to get in, Seven any idea where we can get in?" Carter asked.

"If this is the ship I think it is; yes, move approximately five hundred feet forwards and twenty feet to the left." She said in an instant, as if she already knew exactly what she was on about.

"Have you been on this ship before?" Carter asked as they moved towards the hatch, which was where Seven had thought it would be.

"Erm yes I have, This is the ship Project Ostium used went hey made the first gate jump." She explained.

"I thought you used it to bring people through?" Kat asked as Jorge and Carter grabbed ontot he doors hatch and began to pull.

"Well that was the idea, but in a ship, Remanent just happened to be the nearest habitable planet to where we came out. Trying to do it without a ship tends to lead to complications..." Seven trailed off.

"Would those complications happen to be big scaly and genocidal?" Carter asked as the hatch finally opened.

"Yes, sorry about that, I swear I was only trying to get you, but the precision in the design was for making sure you landed in the right spot, not a precise location to leave from."

"Shouldn't it be precise on both ends?" Jorge asked as they jumped down.

"Yes, but it was made in like a month, They where kinda desperate to get out. It's not like this ship, Wow I missed this place." Seven said, a dreamy smile adorning her face as they moved down the corridor.

"Where you the ship board AI for this thing?" Kat inquired as they moved along.

"Yeah, I might need a map..." Seven said as they hit a solid wall of crudely fitted in metal.

"Well fuck." She swore as she looked at it.

"What's wrong?" Jorge asked.

"This isn't meant to be here, I was on this ship for ten years, granted they where a while ago but this is most definitely not what's supposed to be here."

"Okay, so we need to find a terminal?" Kat asked. It made sense to her, give the AI a new map of the ship and she should be fine.

"We can try, although I doubt bodges like this appear on the schematics." The AI explained.

"This doesn't change anything, we need to find the prisoners and get them off." Carter said.

In theory the plan was simple, get in, break the cells open, take out the guards, reverse the gravity well and get off. However, this was a Noble Mission, so off course things where going to go wrong, but that was the thing, even if the plan changed the goal was normally the same.

"Okay, I'll try to think of another route, I can..." Seven began before Kat walked over to the patch job and fired up her energy sword, driving it through the metal and slicing a hole big enough to climb through.

"Knew I gave you that for a reason." Seven said with a smile as Carter clambered through and aimed his battle rifle around, scanning for a target. When none presented he gestured for Jorge and Kat to follow.

The team moved as fast as they could, managing by some astronomical feet of pure dumb luck to avoid being detected as they moved (the fact Seven was hacking the motion detectors and camera's helped enormously.)

"Guys hide!" Seven cried suddenly, the team instantly dived to the wall (With the exception of Jorge who was forced to hide around a corner due to his size.)

They didn't need to ask what they where hiding from, a second after they had hidden themselves the figure stomped down the corridor.

It was a cold metal, half its limbs didn't seam to be attached as it stomped along. A large triangular rifle held in it's hands. The metallic skull like face looking around as it walked. For a second it stopped, turning to look down the corridor where the Spartans where hiding.

The group tensed as it stood there, it was gassing down the corridor, however it turned away and left.

"The fuck was that?" Kat hissed, having never seen anything like it before.

"What they want to turn everyone they've captured into, come on we need to move." Seven said and the group ran like crazy.

"Although... Something's not right." Seven said as they bolted around another corner.

"What do you mean?" Kat asked, wondering if they where being too loud (Even though Seven insisted they weren't)

"That thing, theirs the DNA of someone in it, but there not meant to be... That designs for an AI to use..." Seven explained as she instructed them to move around the corner.

"Why is this important!?" Kat inquired as they pulled open a hatch in the floor and jumped down to the prison level.

"Because it means Salem has no fucking clue what she's doing." Seven explained as she began to hack the door leading to the prison bay.

"Who is this Salem person? you mentioned her in the cave but I don't think you explained further." Carter inquired.

"That's because I don't know much more about what or who she is, all I found was what she was planing and..." Seven shuddered like crazy, her model flickering like crazy. "...Look as soon as I can I'm getting all the information I've got to Ozpin, I have no idea what that man is but if he hates Salem as much as she hates him then he needs to know everything I've found."

"What do you mean?" Jorge slowly asked as the door beeped and began opening.

"This Salem has plans, and worryingly I think she can pull them off."

"Can we stop her?"

"That's what we're here for; part one of this pan involves making her forces bigger, she's already got those frigging aliens on her side but apparently she needs more on her side." Seven said, rolling her eyes as the door opened up.

"Okay we don't let her get the reinforcements." Carter said, letting Jorge enter the corridor with the cells.

He let Jorge in first for a very simple reason, He had a chain gun and the prison likely had guards. Given a few seconds with Jorge and his gun and the prison no longer had any guards.

The captured Faunus looked around as the Spartans entered.

"We're here to help." Carter said as Kat moved over to the controls and slashed her sword across one of the control panels.

"Thank you." The first person out of the cell said. Carter looked at him, he was big, big enough that he could stand next to Jorge and be on eye level. With a massive black beard and chest hair, his purple robe looking a little worse for wear and his metal shoulder plate was defiantly battered and looked like it had taken quite a few plasma hits.

"My name is Ghira Belladonna, I'm the leader of Menagerie." He said, offering Carter a hand.

"Carter, I'm from Beacon, this is Kat and he's Jorge." Carter explained, pointing to each member of his squad as he named them.

"Wait, you're Ursus friends?" He asked, looking down at the group. "I thought there where four of you coming?"

"Six is on the ground." Carter explained. "She's looking for our friend and helping deal with the ground forces."

"Are you sure he'll be okay on the ground alone?" Ghira asked as he began beckoning the Faunus held in the cells as Kat opened them.

"She'll be fine, let me put it this way. We're Spartans, back home we where the best of the best, only two Spartans in history have been given the ranking of 'Hyper lethal' The highest rank we can be given, Six is one of them. Trust me, once she finds Emile your islands back, now all we need to do is get off..." Carter began as the ship suddenly shock.

"Guys..." Seven said, re-appearing and looking awkward as she rubbed the back of her head. "They may have worked out I was hacking the security systems, their powering up the ship..."

"We need to get off now." Jorge said.

"That would be insanely dangerous." Seven said. "For one thing the gravity wells off and even if you hit water bailing out form this hight will get you killed."

"Then what do you suggest?" Kat asked as Seven smiled.

"I suggest we take the ship."


	46. Chapter 46

Chapter 46 How not to deal with Small Children (even if it kinda works)

"So who even are you anyway?" Angela asked, giving Six the death glare as the group trumped through the jungle of Menagerie.

"Noble Six, I was a member of Noble team with Emile back home." Six said, trying to stay calm as the girl glared at her.

"And where was that?" Tom asked, looking up at Six, thankfully his glare wasn't filled with distrust, interest Six would say if she had to guess.

"It was called Reach, now its probably called a burnt wreck sitting in the middle of no where." Six said, amazed how un bothered she was, her home was wrecked, that should have been a big thing, but it was numb.

 _Guess everything I care about's here now._

Six was happily walking along with the three kids following her, okay they where muttering in what they clearly thought was to low a volume to be detected. But still if she ignored that she was happy.

"Do you guys believe this crap?" Angela whispered in a hushed tone.

"It seams right, plus that armor does look like how he always described it." Tom responded. The two then looking over at Sam, who shrank slightly before saying:

"I think if she wanted to hurt us she would have done it by now." He eventually said, so quietly Six struggled to actually hear it.

"That doesn't prove anything, they've been taking prisoners all week." Angela said continuing to fix Six with her death glare.

"Yeah, to the ship, which is over there." Tom pointed out, gesturing towards the ship which they where actually moving away from.

"Well maybe she's taking us somewhere else then!"

"Yes, the small children deserve special treatment, face it she's not going to do anything to us." Tom shot back.

"Guys, please don't fight..." Sam said in a voice too quiet for anyone but Six who was actually paying attention and trying to hear everything that was being said.

"We can't trust her kind!" Angela said, not troubling to keep her voice down.

"We don't have a choice, we're gonna have to if we want to get out of this mess!" Tom shot back, his voice steadily raising as the pair spoke.

"No we don't, we where doing fine by ourselves and..." Angela said, her voice getting close to a yell.

"Doing fine, doing fine! Hello! When was the last time we ate anything! When was the last time we saw anyone!" Tom flat out yelled back.

"Guys..." Sam said quietly.

"Oh I see just because you want to give up after a week!"

"Guys..."

"Your stupid plan was to hide and hope they fall for a trap they set!"

"Hey it worked didn't it!"

"We got one guy out of hundreds!"

"We could have gotten more!"

"No we couldn't!"

"Yes we could!"

"No we..."

"If you two don't shut the fuck up!" Six yelled, spining around on the spot and giving all three of them a death glare that made Angela's look like the sort of look a kitten gives you when it wants food. "I swear I will fucking tape your god dam traps shut myself! Where in a fucking war zone and you want to bicker like this! Do you have any sense!"

Shock horror, but yelling at the angry children did not make them quite down..

"Hey, you can't boss us around!" Angela yelled.

"Yes I really can, you are aware we're in a war zone right? As in a fucking dangerous place!?" Six cried, massaging her head in frustration.

"Hey this is our home, and if you think you can just insult it because you're human!"

"I cannot, I know, but it's also a hostile environment filled with literally Genocidal aliens who don't give a fuck what you are! If they get near you you are fucked!" Six screamed, wanting to grab Angela and shake the annoying brat.

"What do you know about them!" Angela screamed, it was at this point Six realised she was just screaming to scream. Six clenched her fist before turning to look at her.

"Look, I don't care, okay? I want to keep you alive, find my friends and save everyone here..."

"Oh bullshit!" Angela cried, the prepubescent tone in which she said it made it more funny than impactfull. "No human ever cares about us!"

"Oh that's not true." A new voice said.

Six had moved before anyone had the chance to blink. Her hammer had been pulled of her back and her shield had fully powered up.

She took a micro second to look at her opponent before she swung, and she was glad she did.

The person in front of her was wearing an old set of SPI armor, or to use its more common name among Spartans 'Mjolnir Light'

It wasn't that it was terrible, it was probably better armor than Six's ODST armor in terms of strength. SPI armor was the usual set up for a Spartan III, Six knew full well she'd been lucky to be assigned Mjolnir armor because SPI armor was not as good, the only advantage it had was you could outfit a squad of Spartans for significantly less than a space ship, as opposed to the situation with Mjolnir, which was you could armor a squad or buy a small fleet.

Six noted that this particular set had been modified quite extensively, with knives; lots and lots of knives.

Each shin had two small knives strapped to them, each thigh had two knives attached, the waist had a four knives hanging from various points, The torso had about eight attached to it (Assuming she wasn't missing any of them) and both forearms had three small kunai strapped to them.

Outside of the knives the small details Six could see was the paint, it had been changed from the standard issue olive green to a dull scratched to hell grey, with a few red and white markings standing out.

However the detail that stood out the most to Six was what was in the persons hands and what they'd done to the helmet on there armor.

In the figures hands was a M45 Tactical Shotgun, a fearsome weapon which was known for splitting something in half if you hit a squishy area.

And the Helmet, the helmet was repainted along with the rest of the armor. However, the thing that stood out to most to Six was the visor, specifically the Skull that had been carved into it.

"Nice to see you too." The figure said, amazingly calm when it came to having to Six's Gravity Hammer right in his face.

"Emile..." Six said slowly as the Kids burst out from behind her and ran over to him.

"Dam straight Six, nice to see I'm not the only one who made it over here." He said, Six tried to imagine the grin on his face underneath his helmet, a task which proved difficult given she'd never seen his face before.

"Emile..." Six said again, slowly pulling her helmet of her head to look at the other Spartan.

"Yup, glad to see you where looking out at them, although I think we could have done with less swearing." He said, before tilting his head slightly as Six took a step forward, dropping her helmet to the ground.

"Emile."

 _What do I say?_

 _I don't know! Why aren't you happier!?_

 _'Hi guy I left to die! How are you doing!?'_

 _You do realise he chose to stay behind right!?_

 _It doesn't change matters!_

 _It actually kind of does!_

"Six?" Emile asked, taking a step forward as Six's semblance failed and her armor disappeared, leaving her in her ODST set (Minus the helmet)

"I, Emile... I'm, I'm..." Six stammered, wishing she could think of something to say.

"Emile, you know this woman?" Angela asked, looking up at Emile; her eyes shining as she looked at him.

"Yes, we knew each other back on Reach."

"Really! The planet!" Tom asked, his face lighting up as he looked at Emile.

"Yeah, she had my back until the end..."

"No I didn't..." Six said slowly, her face angled down at the ground so he couldn't see it.

"Erm, yes you did. I was there remember?" Emile asked, looking over at Six who was shaking slightly.

"But I wasn't, I was down on the platform, I couldn't stop that Elite... I couldn't..."

"Yeah, you needed to get the AI to Captain..."

"I couldn't do anything!" Six yelled, looking up and revealing the tears streaming down her face. "I couldn't do anything for any of you! Seven had to save us, I, I had to... I could barley, it took over four months before I found any of you! I, Why am I crying!?" Six wasn't talking now so much as forcing words out between fits of somewhat crazy laughter. "I'm finding you, you found me! You're alive, I should be happy! Fuck sake, why am I crying!?"

Six was shocked when a pair of warm arms wrapped around her, pulling her into a gentle hug.

"Shhh... it's okay." Another new voice said, looking around through her bleary eyes Six could see a large group of Faunus entering the space around them. All of them where armed with some form of UNSC weaponry and some had battered shields with a more friendly looking white Fang logo stencilled onto them.

Slowly as she let her go Six turned around to look at the woman who'd hugged her. She looked older than Lucy by maybe five or ten years? Six wasn't sure, but she was a Cat Faunus with pierced ears and was wearing a shrug that looked like one of the sleeves was missing. Her yellow eyes where looking down aty the confused Spartan, a certain warmth in them... And a familiarity.

"Who, who are you?" Six slowly asked, wiping her face with her arm, embarrassed that she'd cried in front of all these people.

"Kali Belladonna, you must be Emile's friend." She said, smiling warmly at the Spartan who gulped and nodded, trying to pull herself together.

"Noble Six." She said, trying to put a smile on her face.

"Pleasure to meet you, sorry about the circumstances, We where horrified when Ursus said she had friends coming over, we wanted to warn her against it but our communications where never any good before they showed up, let alone afterwards." Kali explained.

"Ma'am it may be best if we get out of here." One of the Surrounding Faunus said, looking around nervously. Six couldn't say she didn't see it, They must have been making a lot of noise when they where yelling, they must have drawn the attention of the Covenant.

"Good point Fred." Kali said, her face firming up as she looked at her troops. "Okay, we need to head back, Emile cover the rear, if you see any of them let them have it, it's the least they deserve, Six if your up to it help him out."

Six nodded, fully wiping her face and gritting her teeth, she had something to do, she could think about that now.

"Good, now lets..." Kali started but never finished giving her order as the Forerunner ship above them began to glow more intensly and the Elites on the island began running towards it, a lot of them flat out ignoring the group as they ran past.

"What's going on?" Fred asked, looking around at the Covenant forces that ran past them.

"No idea, Daisy you got any idea what's going on?" Kali said, looking at a Faunus with a pair of Cow horns growing out of her head, they stood out because she'd had to modify the marine helmet she was wearing to fit them.

"Something's going on on the ship, they keep yelling about Demons..."

"Fuck! They must have found the guys..." Six muttered, grabbing her head in frustration.

"Guys, wait is everyone else here?" Emile asked, a large grin bursting onto his face as he looked at Six, dragging his eyes away from the running Covenant.

"Everyone but Jun, apparently he's still back home." Six explained, looking around and wishing her dam vision would clear up from the crying, it wasn't helping anything.

"So even the big guy made it..." Emile said, Six could tell from the way he was speaking that he was grinning under his helmet.

"Yeah, but what are we going to do?" Six responded, gesturing towards the large retreating forces.

"Well something's going on on the ship, I suggest we make it hard for them to help." Emile said simply, cocking his shotgun for emphasis.

"Hang on, if their distracted we may be able to take control of the vehicle bay, if we could get our hands on those tanks we'd have a much easier time of dealing with this." Kali pointed out.

"Me and Six should go on ahead, a sneak attack would work better and we've got more experience with the Covenant than most of you." Emile said, grinning as he grabbed his teammates shoulder and pulled her close. (Causing Angela's eyes to spark with anger as she looked at the scene.)

"What about us?" A person in ODST armor asked, his pose indicating he was pissed of.

"You two..." Emile said, pointing towards the speaker and another figure also wearing ODST armor. "Help the people here, either go back to camp or fight the Covenant." He said simply. Setting of towards (presumably) the Vehicle bay.

As he left the ship above them began moving, setting off.

 _Whatever you guys are doing I hope it's working!_

Six turned around to address the group in front of her.

"If you attack now it'll be the best chance you're likely to get; they're panicking and disorganised, wait any longer and you'll lose that advantage." Six said, before turning to follow Emile. She hadn't driven a huge amount of Covenant vehicles in her time, but the Wraith had been a lot of fun to turn on the enemy, the idea of doing it again appealed to her greatly.


	47. Chapter 47

Chapter 47: lets make as much noise as possible

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Carter asked back on the Forerunner ship, looking at the AI who let her face burst into a huge smile.

"The first step is simple, I need my ship back." Seven said, rubbing her hand against the cold metal of the wall.

"And how do we do that? Upload you to a terminal?" Jorge asked.

"Er... Kinda?" Seven said, awkwardly rubbing the back of her head.

"We need a specific terminal don't we." Kat asked, her face going flat as she looked at the AI.

"Yeah..." Seven said, smiling awkwardly. "Erm, The AI terminals are limited to specific functions, the main one we need is on the bridge and that's along way away."

As Seven spoke she projected a holographic map of the ship for the group to see, she pointed at the pummel of the sword.

"We're here and we need to get here." Seven said, tracing a finger along the ship and stopping at the tip of the hand guard; a red line tracing the fastest route to the bridge.

"How can we help?" A Faunus in the crowed of freed prisoners asked, Carter noted that he was wearing a marine helmet and chest plate and the radio seamed to be in tact...

"Well, we could use some help with certain things..." Seven said, a plan forming in her mind as she rubbed her chin.

"What do you need?" Ghira asked, looking at the group of Spartans in front of him.

"Erm, Please don't take this the wrong way, but... Distractions would really help..." Seven said, really hoping she wasn't being racist.

"What do you mean by 'Distractions?'" An angry member of the crowed yelled.

"Well, the bridge is the most important part of the ship thus it's the most heavily gaurded bit of said ship, if security could be taken away form it then..."

"So we're canon fodder?" Another angry member of the crowed yelled.

"No, no!" Seven cried, shaking her head and waving her hands like crazy. "Not that, I want you to kill as many of them as fucking possible!"

"And why should we do that? Why shouldn't we just get off the ship and escape!?" Someone else yelled from the crowd.

"Because A: They still want to kill you and could easily do that before you got back, B: Menagerie still has forces down their, I mean Six is good but she's not that good. Finally; reason C: See this thing over here?" Seven asked, walking over and pointing to one of the guard's body's. A knight class Promethean assuming Salem had got the names right with her research and investigations. She disappeared into the Knights body for a second, saying while she did some digging:

"The ships left and come back in the week it's been here." Seven said, not phrasing it as a question because she knew full well she was right as she began digging into the Promethean's DNA bank.

"Yes it has." Ghira said gravely.

"I know, tell me is anyone missing a child? Becuase I just found them." Seven said, emerging from the Promethean and projecting a hologram of the body the DNA inside must have come from.

A small fish Faunus appeared, her ears replaced with large fish fins, roTating and letting the crowd get a good look at her.

"Naomi..." A Fish Faunus in the crowd said, raising her hand to her mouth as she looked at the model.

"They did this to her, we can't restore her and they fully intend to do this to everyone on the island, think about that for a second, I'm asking you to kill the people who would turn you, your family's and everyone else you know and care about into these things, They don't care who or what you are, they will make you into a monster, and have, everyone who got taken on the first trip, they're gone; and you really want to run away?" Seven practically spat, rage following through her as her model flashed red.

The crowd was silence before the first Faunus to yell in anger said, in a much quieter tone:

"What do we do?" They said, shaking as they spoke.

"Like I said, get a weapon, run like crazy and kill every none Faunus/human thing you see; do you understand?" The corwed nodded, Jorge could tell no one was going to run away now. He walked over to a series of cabinet's built into the wall near the guards main watch point, he sslamed his fist into the cabinet and ripped the door off. Grabbing the weapons inside and throwing them to the crowd.

"Do not friendly fire with them." Seven warned as the crowed picked up the weapons and aimed them around. "If you hit someone without a shield you'll disintegrate them."

"Okay!" Carter yelled, climbing up onto the guards walkway, standing over the crowed, his body starting to glow an extremely faint blue. "We need to split up, I'll go with Jorge, Kat and Seven too take the bridge.. Form up into three groups, stay together and make sure you have a functioning radio on you, keep in contact with everyone else and warn people if you encounter something, other than that, make noise and destroy as much as you can, the less they have to go after us the better."

Ghira walked over to look up at Carter as he began to glow even brighter, to the point where everyone could see it now.

"I'll come with you, it would be better for my people to have someone with you to make sure you're helping, also what's you're plan once you have the ship?" He asked, looking at Seven who let out a cruel smile no one had seen on her face before.

"Well, I can seal almost every single sector of this ship, and I have full control over the life support, I figured locking them in the rooms and removing the oxygen might do the trick."

The Spartans and most of the crowd nodded about this, it seamed fitting.

"Then we have our plan, lets go." Carter said, vaulting over the hand rail as the glow became brighter, finally flashing bright blue and standing up, now standing taller and his blue Mjolnir armor formed around him.

"Nice." Kat said, smiling as she looked up at Carter.

"Thanks, once they've formed groups we'll head out." He said looking down. the feeling of his armor being back was odd after six months of not having it.

"Sir." A figure in the crowd said, forcing his way out with another figure following him. They where about six foot tall and dressed fully in ODST armor.

"Form a group..." Carter began saying, before one of the guys in the ODST armor said:

"Sir, Gunnery Sargeant Ford Dent" He said, looking at Carter, a battle rifle in his hands.

"Lance Corporal Arthur Prefect" The other figure said.

"You're actual ODST?" Kat asked, looking at the two in surprise.

"Yes, we where on Reach when it fell, Noble Six helped us out back on the ground, I'm guessing your the rest of her squad?"

"Yes, How did you get over here?" Carter asked, Seven appeared and blushed slightly.

"Okay, you know how I said Project Ostium was imprecise? Well I didn't only get Covenant forces, I got a lot actually... Not many humans where alive and sadly I only had the resources to fix Noble Team up, guessing these guys got caught up in the gate." Seven said.

"Makes sense to me." Kat said simply.

"Project Ostium?" Ford asked, looking at Seven. Carter interrupted him however.

"We'll explain later, did anyone else make it over?" He asked, looking at the ODST's.

"Trisha and Marvin are on the ground." Arthur explained.

"Okay, they'll probably help out Six, What do you two want?" Carter inquired.

"We want to help you out, You need a small crew but if you have more who can help you out..."

"Agreed, the groups appear to have been made, lets move out people!" Carter yelled, letting the Faunus teams leave the room, running off out of the room. Carter looked at his squad.

"Okay, lets go."

…

As they moved throughout the Ship Kat got the distinct feeling she was probably the weakest person here.

Carter had his armor back, Jorge never lost it and the two ODST's with them where still adults. She was a teenager with no armor outside of a helmet. (Aura not withstanding.) Admitedly Seven would have been helpful but she'd been moved to Jorges helmet because as it turned out Carter still had Auntie Dot in his helmet (Seven had promised that if they got back she'd try to get Dot back online, although she wasn't confident she could do a lot.)

The problem was that Kat's main thing was hacking, and she knew fuck all about Forerunner technology and its computing process. So in the end she was just a girl with a sword. It wasn't something that made her feel good about this situation.

Thankfully (kinda) her size did prove helpful as they approached the door leading to the next level.

"We're not fitting through there are we?" Arthur said, scowling up at the service hatch.

"No... This hatch is meant to be bigger than this... Urgh I swear the first thing we're doing once I've got this ship back is ripping these bodges out, their fucking up my schematics.

"Not important right now." Carter pointed out. "How are we going to take the ship back if we can't reach the bridge?"

"I can fit." Kat said, looking up at the hatch, everyone else would struggle due to size and bulkiness, however Kat didn't have this issue.

"Okay, Kat can you reach it?" Carter said, noting that the bodge to the hatch had meant the hole you had to go through was about a foot away from the ladder.

"Erm... no, I might need a boost." Kat said, Jorge immediately bent down and put his hands together to lift her off the floor. She gripped the edge of the hatch and pulled herself through, until something got in the way.

"Fuck." She swore, looking down and seeing her hips had gotten stuck in the hole.

"I'll help!" Arthur said, a bit to happily for Kat's taste.

"No! Carter you get me through here." She said. She felt to gloved hands pushing on her butt.

"Please tell me that's Carter." Kat said as she started to move.

"It is." Jorge said.

"Yeah, I got Arthur." Ford said, while Kat couldn't see it Ford had actually grabbed Arthur when he'd first spoken.

"Thank you." Kat called as she finally got forced through the hole, turning around she looked down and did see Carters armor below her.

"Okay, hold on for a second." She said, igniting her sword and slicing the bodge job off, allowing the others to join her in the service tunnel. If Seven's map was still accurate they should be able to just travel up the tunnel and arrive a couple of hundred meters from the bridge.

The tunnel was long and for the most part they where silent as they climbed. Kat could hear the heaving and pulling as the group moved up, their metal armor clanking as it hit the metal.

"Oh for the love of..." Seven swore, looking up at the hatch.

"What's wrong? it looks fine to me." Kat said, looking at the hatch and gripping the release handle, pushing on it and trying to open it, only for it to move an inch before hitting something.

"What the hell's going on?" Kat asked, turning to look at Jorges Helmet, from which Seven said.

"These fuckers have patched over the release, we can't..."

Kat responded by igniting her sword and ramming it through the hatch. Getting the shock of her life when a series of Sangheili swearing swear words greeted her in response.

"...Open it and even if we could theirs a Three Zealots standing right outside of it." Seven finished.

The above Elites enraged at what was happening ripped the hatch and the patch blocking it off, looking down to leer at the group... Getting the shock of his life as Kat stabbed him through the head.

He died instantly and Kat took her chance, forcing the hatch open and scrambling out, using the Zealots body as a shield as one of his squad mates attempted to swing his sword through her, thinking fast Kat threw the body at him, forcing him back as she span around and sliced her sword through the third Elite that was approaching her. Kat loved how effective against shield's these swords where.

"Typical demon." The final Elite said, throwing the body of the first Elite off him.

"If you want a fight I'll give it to you." Kat said, smiling as she raised her sword into a fighting stance.

"Very well." It said, igniting his own sword and the two ran at each other.

Unfortunately for this particular Zealot Kat subscribed to the same school of honour Six did; meaning the Elite was shocked as Kat dived out of the way, raising her sword to block his strike as Jorge fired his gun, blowing the beast brains out and splattering them against the wall.

"That's why you don't mess with Noble team." Kat said, giving the dead Elite a good kick, the guy had a Needler taped to his back and she knew it had been someone like this who had gotten her on Reach. While she was sure this one wasn't it made her feel better to give it a kick.

"Okay, the bridge is just over their right?" Carter said to Seven, pointing down the hall towards the door in the centre.

"Yup" Seven said... before turning around in shock. "But, we might need to deal with them first..." She said, pointing towards the other end of the hallway.

They couldn't see anyone but they could hear them coming, and it sounded like a lot of them where coming.

"Erm... is it just me or is everything vibrating?" Ford asked, looking around as the everything began to shake.

"Oh fuck!" Seven cried out. "The ship's moving! We need to be fast otherwise we're going to be too late to save anyone!"

Seven dived out of Jorge's helmet and disappeared into a random console on the wall, the blast doors slammed down.

"That wont hold them forever." Seven said as she moved back into Jorge's head.

"Kat, Jorge, get the bridge. We'll hold them off; We need this ship under control!" Carter said, raising his battle rifle and aiming towards the end of the hallway.

The two nodded and sprinted off as Carter, Arthur and Ford got ready to fight, watching the door as the approaching Covenant and Promethean forces got closer.

"On a scale of one to ten how fucked are we?" Arthur asked Ford, who shrugged and responded with:

"Probably about a nine." He said with a week grin. (not that you could see that through his helmet.

"Don't talk like that." Carter said simply, adjusting his stance and fully checking his rifle over. "We can get out of this, besides we only need to hold them off long enough for Seven to trap them."

"Not the most reassuring thing you could say if we're completely honest." Arthur pointed out.

"Ah fuck it, if I have to die now then fuck it, lets make this as messy as we can." Ford responded as the door in front of them finally buckled and the Covenant charged in.


	48. Chapter 48

Chapter 48: So Emile, how's things?

"So who where those guys?" Six asked as she followed Emile through the jungle.

"Which guys?" Emile asked as he jumped over a fallen log.

"The two in the ODST armor." Six explained, wishing she was taller without her Mjolnir as she had to vault over the log not jump it and that slowed her down somewhat and she almost missed Emile's response.

"Oh them, they're a squad of ODST's, hard bastards have been helping me train the kids." Emile explained as he slowed up slightly to let Six catch up.

"You been teaching them how to fight?" Six asked, figuring out where Angela had gotten the knife from now. (She didn't say it at the time but personally she was happy to know it wasn't only Covenant forces that Seven had accidently dragged over)

"Yes, they may not have an academy here but that's no excuse for not knowing how to kick ass."

"Subtle as always." Six said with a smirk, noting the skull Emile's new helmet was far more animalistic than the previous one, maybe that was his attempt to go local.

"I won't let anyone get walked over." Emile responded simply, slowing down as they reached the edge of the clearing so he could scout the area.

"That's fair." Six said, sure she could hear the sounds of footsteps behind her, however she couldn't see anything and a Grunt was the only member of the Covenant forces small enough to make that kind of noise. So it was extremely unlikely to be anything big enough to cause a problem.

"Yeah, now come on." Emile said, moving forward towards a panicked Jackal, slowly extracting one of his many knives as he approached it.

When he was close he sprang out and punched the creature around the face to daze it before he rammed the knife into the beasts neck, keeping its jaw shut with his hands as the thing slowly died.

Emile gestured with his hands and Six darted out of the forest.

 _Hey this is the first vaguely militaristic thing we've done in mouths._

 _Yeah I think it is actually..._

 _Wow._

 _Is it bad I kinda like this?_

 _Eh, so long as we can have fun with Ilia when we get back I don't care._

"Now I see why you have the knives." Six said, smirking as she looked down at the dead body of the Jackle.

"Stealth was never my thing." Emile said simply. "But I would be lying if I said it was never helpful."

"No kidding." Six said, suddenly remembering something she had on her. "Also, I know this isn't the best time, but this is yours..."

Six reached into one of the pouches on her belt and unhooked a knife she'd brought along with her, mostly so she could give it back to Emile.

"Is that my Knife?" He asked, looking down in amazement as he took the weapon from Six.

"Yeah, I've got the armor back at Beacon if you're interested, I mean I can summon mine, even if it gets tiring after a while..." She said with an awkward grin.

Carefully Emile unsheathed the weapon and gave it a few experimental swings.

"What have you been cleaning this with?" He asked as he ran it against the dead Jackal's body, seemingly gliding through with no resistance.

"Tetsuya Weapon polish, Ruby recommended the stuff to me; does wonder's to keep blades sharp." Six explained, sure that as she spoke she could hear something from the forest.

"No kidding." Emile said, before suddenly flashing around and driving the weapon into the skull of a Brute who'd come to investigate the noise, to Six's shock it sliced cleanly through metal helmet and deep into the notoriously tough skull of a Brute.

"Seriously." Six grinned, looking as Emile sheathed the weapon after wiping it off on the under suit of his SPI armor.

It was at that point the cluster of Grunts that had been following the Brute panicked and ran away like crazy, screaming while they did so.

"Well I was board of stealth anyway." Emile muttered, cocking his shotgun.

"You snuck up on like one guy." Six said, bursting into an enormous grin as her Mjolnir flashed into life around her.

"Like I said, Board." Emile said, looking at Six and clenching his fists.

"What are you doing?" Six asked, until Emile flashed red and suddenly his Armor was returned. He looked down at the chest piece.

"You fixed it?" He asked in surprise.

"Yup, and how did you figure that out so fast? It took me months to get that to happen!"

"Well everyone on the island kept bugging Me about my Semblance, then you did that and I figured why not try." Emile said simply, the familiar skull that had watched over Six while she slept looking back at her. "Plus this helps me kick some Covenant ass."

"Can't fault you there." Six said, before vaulting over the bollard and charging at the nearest Covenant member.

Emile followed shortly after and the next ten minutes where pure carnage.

The two of them moved quickly but brutally. Six's hammer sent foes flying or just crushed them depending on the direction it happened to be travelling in when Six swung it. Emile's shot gun demonstrated accuracy not usually associated with the weapon, seeming to never miss and strike each target right in the chest, his knife only coming out if a shield had the indecency to show up.

The pair flattened themselves on the wall in which the Covenant vehicles where hidden behind.

"So what do you want to take?" Six asked, smirking at Emile who rubbed the chin of his helmet in moc deep thought.

"I was thinking a couple of ghosts, we can do a lot of damage in those." Emile said. Six nodded.

"Fair enough, how do we get over?" Six asked, looking at the wall, it was deep purple like a lot of Covenant tech and about ten feet tall. (IE: to tall for either Spartan to reach.)

"I boost you, you're lighter and then you can open the door." He said, getting ready to lift Six.

To his surprise Six laughed.

"I appreciate the thought, but I don't need it." Six said, taking a few steps back before running forward and leaping into the air and employing what Six had deemed the 'Valkery Jump' Something she'd learnt from Nora, if you used the swing of a hammer combined with a significant amount of force from the head of the hammer the wielder could be flung extremely high into the air.

So high Six easily crossed the wall and landed on the other side (Funnily enough she flattened the Jackal on guard)

"Where did you learn that?" Emile asked as Six 'disabled' (IE: punched really hard) the lock on the gate.

"A friend at Beacon." Six said, turning around and wondering how long it was going to take for the Covenant to come running.

Six bowed as Emile walked through, keeping a low profile as he mounted a Ghost. He then looked around.

"You getting on one?" He asked, looking at Six who shook her head.

"Nope." She didn't say anything else, she just pointed.

Emile looked where she was pointing and beamed under his helmet.

"Would you care for a lift?" He asked, a mock gesture towards the armoured bike.

"Why yes I would, thank you good sir!" Six said, putting her feet on the back of the bike and gripping the back of Emile's chest plate.

"Hold on tight." Emile said as he gunned the Ghost.

...

"Angela we really shouldn't be here!" Sam said from the trio's hiding spot roughly two hundred meters behind the Spartans.

"I won't let her boss me around." Angela said, growling as the Purple armoured girl gripped onto Emile's back.

"It's not about that!" Sam cried as quietly as he could. "It's not safe here, we need to get out and..."

"Look the safest place on this island is near Emile, going back to hide at an un guarded camp is a really bad idea." Tom said, determination in his eyes as he watched the two disappear. "Besides they got the guards, so it's safe to go over there."

Sam scowled as his friends ran out, He could think of plenty of reasons why this wasn't safe and the many flaws in this argument, he wanted to voice them, but his mouth refused to open.

 _Same as always..._

Angela had already started moving, sprinting across the ground and into the compound.

"We need to turn back." Sam muttered as Tom set off after her. Groaning he went to follow them, but before he left he spotted something on the ground; he recognised it as one of the weapons the smallest aliens used. A small 'C' shaped bit of purple metal which joint up in the middle witha glowing green element connecting them.

Sighing he reached down and took it, unlike Angela he wasn't armed and unlike Tom he wasn't a good fighter on the ground. His wings shifting nervously he set out after his friends, feeling a little bit safer with a weapon on him... But only a little bit.

If he could have seen what was sneaking up behind them though, especially if he could have seen what it did a few seconds latter...

...

Six probably didn't need to bum a ride off Emile, in theory she could have made it to her target on foot. But there were two reasons she elected to do it.

The first reason was it was fun and she was still running off the happiness kick of finding Emile. The second reason was because it was faster, her choice was only nine hundred meters away but that was (at Spartan speeds) about twenty five seconds with little cover. As Kat could tell you, that was still plenty of time for something to go wrong.

So With Emile's help she moved to the Brute Chopper she'd been seeking and dived on.

Six would never have said this back home to anyone, not the UNSC higher ups, nto the foot soldiers and defiantly not to ONI, but she frigging loved these things.

She wasn't sure why but she had some speculations. For one thing the bike was far more angular than a standard Covenant vehicle, it was also unpainted, which to Six made it look more suitable for a fight. She personally loved the insanely huge front wheel which could run in any direction and on top of that the guns were so powerful and fired insanely fast.

Six revved the alien bike, looking over at Emile.

"So, you telling them we got vehicles?" Six said as Emile began talking over the helmets.

"You bet I am, I seriously thought there'd be more guards here though; We just walked in and nicked these." 

"Well the ship is moving, maybe they wanted to get on board quickly, it's not like the people here have anywhere to go." Six pointed out.

"Yeah, but still..." He began to say, before a distinctly alien voice sounded over the radio.

"Hell Demons." It said, clearly going for a menacing and cruel tone.

Six rolled her eyes and looked around, saying:

"Who the hell are you?" She asked.

"You will never know, but through your deaths my name shall..."

"What do you want?" Six said, not really caring for this speech.

"What I want, what I want..." It muttered.

"This guys trying way too hard." Emile muttered, in the way which it was more about how you said the word and less about volume, because the speaker heard what was said and wasn't happy about it.

"You may mock me now..." He began enraged, before Six butted in.

"That wasn't a mock that was feedback; he was just saying you should maybe drop the menacing act for a little bit." Six explained.

"Thank you, now as I was..."

"Now if he was mocking you he would have said something along the lines of: 'I've seen kids anime with more dignified and threatening villains.' See I'm saying your worse than something people already think is bad, hence it's a form of mockery."

"If you don't come to these coordinates I'm bunging a hole in the head of these children." The voice said as three voices suddenly became audible in the background.

"Hey let me go!" Tom cried.

"When Emile gets over here!" Angela cried.

"Get over here or I'm gutting them."

Six and Emile looked at each other for half a second before nodding and gunning it towards the coordinates.


	49. Chapter 49

Chapter 49: This is a really bad idea.

"We shouldn't be doing this." Dab said, the small Grunt shifting from foot to foot as he looked at Warg.

"Look we can do this." Warg said, looking at his hostages behind him.

Warg was unusual for a Unggoy (Or grunts as they were more company called) He stood one hundred and forty eight centimetres tall, making him a whole ten centimetres taller than most of his comrades. This height made him comparably more intimidating than a normal Unggoy, add that to the horribly scarred face he gave an intimidating figure...

Well, no actually. He wasn't intimidating, only to his kind was he any form of scary, even the mice hadn't been terrified of him. And the scars which gave off a battle worn appearance where mostly given to him by his higher ups.

It was a sad fact of Covenant life, Unggoy meant nothing to anyone else, they had each other and not a lot else, not that that was going to last.

"Two of them, two demons, if we can kill them, we can show them what we can do, they'll respect us, I know they will..." Warg muttered, walking back and forth, his fingers nervously playing with his Needler.

"We know there coming." Dab pointed out, gesturing towards the hostages (Who'd been tied to some support columns while they were knocked out.) "We don't know we can kill them, if anything I think angering them is going to make them more dangerous."

Warg looked over at his second in command (No one really bothered to give Grunts ranks, they just sort of banded together and the Elite that needed some cannon fodder would just grab the group and send them out. So Dabs rank was purely verbal and wasn't at all official.)

"We can, I've seen it happen before, enough of us firing at them and we can get them, even the weaponry they gave us..." (Warg's Needler was heavily battered and partially held together with some gaffer tape he's found on the island) "...They'll fall. They aren't invincible, we can do it and there's no way they'll be able to doubt our worth..."

"There um... Kinda is." Tom pointed out, struggling to get free from his bindings. (Having bitten through the gag they'd tried to tie around his mouth after the communication ended.)

"What do you mean?" Dab asked, jumping on the chance to get some reason to make Warg see sense (Electing not to notifiy his friend/commander that the other human male was trying to wriggle free of his bindings.)

"Don't listen to him, there..." Warg began before Tom started talking.

"How are you going to prove that you killed them, assuming you even manage that."

"We will bring them there armor and..." Warg began.

"You could have just found it." Tom pointed out.

"But, we will tell them..."

"Will they believe you?" Tom asked. The way Warg jumped told Tom everything he needed to know.

"We, we just need to... Film it, we just need a camera and..."

"Do you have one? And more to the point can you get your hands on it within a few minutes? Because that purple lady probably isn't going give you time and Emile defiantly isn't."

"I, I..." Warg said, looking around desperately, he needed to do something.

"So the rumours where true." A voice suddenly said from the side of the room.

"Oh no..." Dab said quietly, looking up at the new speaker.

"Torzeis!" Warg said, jolting up and looking at the speaker, adapting a look of terror, praying the Brute wouldn't look too hard into his eyes and see the hatred.

"So, you did come up with a plan to lure them over." Torzeis said, looking at the three tied up, before turning to Dab and sneering at him.

"Pathetic." He said, slamming the Grunt and sending him flying into the wall. "Get on watch!" Torzeis yelled, storming over to Warg who stood his ground.

Warg was not many things, he wasn't a strategist, he wasn't a marksman. What he was was determined and brave, that's what kept him alive and why he was so beaten up, being brave was not considered a good thing for his kind to have.

"I said: Get. On. Watch!" Torzeis yelled, screaming right in the face of Warg.

Warg didn't make any noise; he simply walked to the far staircase, towards Dab and where he'd been left.

"Where are you going!?" Torzeis screamed as Warg bent down and gasped as he saw something.

Dab's pack was punctured, green methane gas expelling from the triangular pack.

"This needs patching." Warg said, sprinting back to his desk to retrieve his tape, only to have Torzeis smash him towards the stairs.

"I don't care about that pathetic welp, now get up on Watch!" He yelled, only to look in shock as Warg got up and ran towards the tape again.

"You are trying my patience!" Torzeis said, gripping the Grunt around the neck and lifting him into the air. This would put the pathetic creature in his palce.

"What are you doing?" The Brute growled as Warg raised his arm and pointed his Needler at his face.

Warg couldn't say anything, this was an empty threat and he knew it. Needler's where powerful but he'd never be able to fire enough shots off to break Torzeis's shield before the Brute snapped his neck like a twig.

Except, maybe he didn't have to.

While no one had been looking Sam had been trying to wriggle his way out of his bindings, succeeding because Warg wasn't good with knots and neither was Dab. He managed to get them lose and grabbed the weapon they'd taken from his when they grabbed him.

He wasn't sure it would do anything, but Sam pulled the trigger and let the shot build up until the heat from the weapon became too much and he released the trigger, yelling:

"Let him go!" Sam yelled, letting the weapon fire and hitting the Brute in the back.

Something happened to him, almost like an Aura break, a yellow field dispelled around him. He turned to look at the one who had fired, electing to put them in their place...

Only to be stopped as Warg took his chance, firing his Needler into the back of the Brute's skull.

Torzeis staggered, his skull was thick but a Needler round to the back of it was still going to hurt and in most cases would have been fatal, especially if it was left that way for too long.

The Brute staggered into the middle of the room, fighting to get a conscious thought in his head and to kill the traitor, and his three twin brothers.

Not that he got a chance to, mostly because it was at this point that Six and Emile entered the room (Or shack to be precise, Dab and Warg had just taken a random house to dump their stuff in) except by 'Entering the room' the twos actual plan was not to walk in.

Six entered first, giving through the door on her Chopper and slamming into Torzeis, spinning the main wheel and effectively slashing the Brutes chest to pieces. While Emile ramped over Six, let the Ghost fly and jumped off so he could drive his returned knife into the Brutes skull.

"Kids!" Emile cried, running over to the three of them after he pulled the knife out and slashed their bindings.

Six smiled as the three kids hugged Emile, it was honestly cute, then she turned towards the two grunts in the room. She wasn't attacking them, mostly because they were unarmed and not even that big of a threat.

Emile however... was not that kind.

"Pray to whatever gods you freaks believe in." He said, aiming his gun at Warg, who was crawling towards Dab with the tape in his hands, massaging his throat with his free hand.

"No don't!" Sam and Tom cried, moving in front and trying to shield the Grunt.

"I'm sorry didn't he kidnap you?" Emile asked, looking at the two boys while Angela stayed clamped to his legs.

"Well, yes but..."

"He shot the big one!" Sam blurted, pointing to the discarded Needler. Six looked down at it then to the wound in the back of what was left of the Brutes skull. Noticing the spike embedded in it.

"But, he's one of them..." Emile began before Six put a hand on his shoulder.

"Emile, it's not that simple." She said, showing him a picture on her scroll. It had been taken in Atlas and showed Fin in all his hybrid glory, With Ilia riding on one shoulder and Six on the other.

"Who's..."

"This is Frak Ignus Norte, or as we call him, Fin. He is the main reason we found Jorge and got back home, he turned against the Covenant and has saved my life from them multiple times. He is my friend and if I can befriend a frigging Hunter you can hear the kids out if they've know what they're like." Six said simply, walking over to Warg who war wresting with the tape to try and get some off and Fix his friends tank.

"Here." Six said, ripping the tape of for him and slapping it over the puncture. In later days Dab would claim to be one of the luckiest Grunt's ever, because the puncture to his tank had been small enough that not enough escaped for any serious damage to occur.

"I, Thanks." Warg muttered, praying the Demon wasn't lying and going to shot him in the back.

"It's okay, but if you try something like this again I'm giving you to Emile." Six said simply as Dab looked up at the Spartan.

"Why?" Warg asked, grabbing Six around the leg to stop he from walking off. "I, I have to know, Why!?"

Six shrugged.

"I don't know some people deserve a second chance." She said before walking over to Emile. "So what's the verdict?"

"The verdict is that Sam here has got a major pair off balls." He said, grinning as he slapped the winged boy on the back.

Six tilted her head in confusion.

"This little guy had the balls to shoot a Brute in the back with a plasma pistol!" Emile said, Six grinned.

"Nice." She said, looking down at the small boy who had gone red and wasn't looking at her.

"Yeah but I think you driving... whatever that is into it is cooler!" Tom said, gesturing to Six's discarded Chopper.

"Hey Emile was cool!" Angela cried out.

"Yeah but She entered first!" Tom responded.

"Doesn't make her cooler!" Angela shouted back.

Rolling her eyes Six walked over to the corner where Sam had moved to, he was wriggling his fingers and staring at his friends, not standing near them.

"You okay?" Six asked, looking down at boy who jolted as she approached. Six dispelled her armor; restoring herself to being just a foot taller than him rather than two feet taller than him, happy that she only swayed slightly as opposed to passing out.

"Yeah, just... I've never fired a gun before..." He said, looking down at the Plasma pistol he'd picked up.

"Well you saved at least two lives, so that's something." Six said simply, walking up the stairs to get to the roof.

"Where's the ship?" Sam asked, following Six up the stairs to look around at the sky. Six took his hand and turned it to point at the ship, which appeared to be on a return course to Menagerie, also all the various bits of crap where floating around the ship for no disenable reason appeared to have dropped off.

"Is it me or is it heading this way?" Emile said, having followed them up the stairs and looking around.

"Yup." Six said, muttering: "I wish we could tell what was going on on board that ship."

"We can." Warg said, holding Torzeis helmet up to Six, the mic still glowing and functional.

"Thanks." Six said, taking the helmet off and putting it on her own head. It didn't fit but she could still here what was being said through it.

She then started laughing, hard.

"What's so funny?" Emile asked, looking as Six with concern as the Spartan collapsed to the ground, clutching at her sides.

"They are so screwed!" Six yelled, giggling like crazy, very nearly falling down the stairs until Dab caught her.

"I got the impression you demons where supposed to be more coordinated than that." He said flatly.

"Sorry to disappoint you." Six snorted.


	50. Chapter 50

Chapter 50: I do not like these odds

"...Let's make this as messy as we can." Ford responded as the door finally buckled and the forces finally broke through the door.

The trio guarding the door didn't hesitate for a second, their weapons sprang to life and open fired. The Covenant Grunts that forced the doors open fell in an instant as UNSC/Remnant standard issue bullets tore into their opponents, most of which successfully pierced the skulls in one clean shot.

Sadly this was only useful on the first wave of infiltrators as they weren't staggered from opening the door and in general were much more resilient to bullets.

The trio darted down a side corridor; figuring they'd be more appealing targets to the Covenant is they ran away. Covenant liked making sure everyone was dead and they wouldn't let anyone escape, hence why they split off again as soon as they could, three targets meant three groups to go against two ODST's and a Spartan. Well they where the best the UNSC had to offer and they had managed these sorts of victory's in the past...

So the three of them ran, ran to try and keep the Covenant busy, to by Kat, Jorge and Seven time...

Little did they know that time wasn't the issue that group was facing.

...

Jorge and Kat had no difficulty getting into the bridge, Seven literally opened the door for them; not even at the push of the button she just sent the door the code and it opened for them in less than a second.

The difficulty for the pair came across was sitting in the floating control chair. Just one Elite and a squad of four Promethean's that was all that manned the bridge of the ship.

None of them had noticed the pair, which was weird, the amount of noise they'd been making surely someone would have noticed them.

Slowly the pair moved in and saw what the problem was, the Elite was getting transmissions from all over the ship and was trying to deal with them.

Neither of them could get a good shot from where they were, the chair he was sitting on was too thick, Jorge's bullets would never make it through (Kat didn't even have a gun, she had her sword and not a lot else {She and Six were in agreement that they needed to buy side arms of some kind at some point, or duct tape a gun to their weapons.}) So the pair moved, careful to be as quiet as possible as they moved.

Kat and Jorge both looked at the Elite, he was tall, outrageously tall even for an Elite, Both of them suspected he was only slightly shorter than Fin. His left arm was now a jet black as opposed to scaly grey with bright white bony claws rupturing the flesh. He'd heavily modified his armor, it was painted black with white plates augmented onto it to add spikes and other weird markings all over it, like a Grimm.

They might have been able to pull it off if the Elite hadn't turned to look at them.

"Did your kind really think that trick was going to work on me twice?" The Elite asked, turning to look down at the pair as the Prometheans got up and turned to face them.

"What trick?" Jorge asked slowly, taking Kat's hand as they took a step backwards.

"Oh, did she not tell you about me? Where her crimes bad even by your kinds pathetic standards?" The Elite asked, getting up off his chair as one of the Prometheans shot out Jorge's gun; the weapon crumbling to red hot dust as he held it.

"Who are you?" Kat asked, igniting her blade and positioning herself between Jorge and the rest of the group (Even though Jorge still stood about two feet taller than her so his head and upper torso was still clearly visible.)

"Hmm... We never did exchange names did we? Well if you will tell me your purple friend's name I suppose I could tell you mine." The Elite said walking towards the duo, his muscular torso looking oddly out of shape as one arm clearly didn't match the other.

"What do you want with Six?" Jorge asked.

Kat wanted to face palm as Jorge said that.

"So her name is Six? Such an unusual name for a Demon, although is suppose if I had someone that cowardly working for me I wouldn't dignify them with a proper name..."

"Don't you dare insult her like that!" Kat yelled. She wasn't going to let her friend, the one who'd stayed until the very end to save them, to save all of humanity...

"She cheated in a one on one fight and tried to murder me." The Elite shot back, taking a large stomp towards the pair; his deformed arm twitching and its fist clenching as he spoke.

"You're the Elite she fought in the Schnee manor?" Jorge asked, sure Six said he was dead.

"So she has told you about me, I did wonder; suppose I never gave her my name, not that she was worthy of it... However, I suppose in your final moments I can be generous." The Elite said, grinning with his mandibles as he looked at the two of them, a certain mad look in his eyes.

"My name is Turak, leader of the Covenant forces on this pathetic rock, I have found my salvation and I am more than ready to begin the great journey, with the death of you demons I will begin the final steps, we are almost ready and I will not let you stop me, Promethean's open fire!" The elite yelled, raising his warped and mangled hand into the air and bringing it down as his soldiered weapons glowed more intensely.

Kat and Jorge both acted without any thinking needed, they'd been on the same team for years and could work of each other with very little effort.

Kat moved forward and kicked the floating Chair Turak had been sitting on towards half the Prometheans while Jorge ran at them, his shields holding out long enough for him to drive a fist through the head of one of them, then with the first Promethean still impaled on his fist he swung around and sent it's body into the other who had been lining up to take a shot.

Jorge than grabbed the dropped guns of the ground, throwing one to Kat who caught it and aimed at the Elite as Jorge did the same thing with his newly retrieved Promethean weapon.

To their surprise Turak laughed; his shoulders spasaming as he laughed, his fingers opening and closing, his fists clenching as he laughed, deep from within his alien throat.

"You two, you deserve the title of demon, in all honesty if you fell to them I would really have a problem; besides, I wanted to do this myself." He said, smiling as he gripped the two handles on his thighs; pulling them off and activating his twin blades.

"How is that fair?" Kat asked, glancing down at the one blade she had rammed into the waistband of her shorts.

"Your precious Six didn't honour me with a fair fight. Why should I do the same for you?" Turak asked with a mad laugh as he lunged at the pair.

Both of them only just got out of the way in time as he slashed, both of them knew what to do next, he was going to have to pick a target, they would dodge while the other person fired.

Turak jumped at Jorge, probably realising that Jorge was bigger and armoured, a significantly bigger threat (in every sense of the word) than Kat.

He would regret making that move.

Kat took aim and fired on Turak, her new weapon (a strange triangular rifle with a scope floating an inch off the rifle {Did the Forerunners just have a fetish for floating bits on all their crap?}) shot a quick bust of fire that didn't even bring down the Elites shields.

Deterred but not done Kat moved back, continuing to fire on Turak as Jorge dodged the swipe and swung his fist at the Elite who dodged... But failed to notice Jorge's other hand which gripped around Turak's Grimm arm and crushed it; in a second of weakness his grip on his sword faltered, the weapon falling as Jorge drove his knee into his guts.

This staggered him long enough for Jorge to pick up the dropped sword and ignite it, Kat dropped the guns she'd been holding and leapt at Turak who span around in a second and caught Kat's blade, spinning, an act that forced Kat away from him an span him around. Allowing him to catch Jorges blade.

The three of them clashed, each swing was aimed to be fatal by the Spartans, who were experiencing the strange feeling of being outclassed. This was unusual; Spartans were the best and someone who could match them... Well it wasn't pleasant to put it lightly.

At this point Kat really wished she had anything to help her, she was failing and getting burnt by the Elites blade, tearing through her clothing and skin with little difficulty, she was getting burned and injured with every swing.

Jorge had his armor to protect him, Six had had her armor and her girlfriend, she needed an advantage on her side, she needed something.

Turak wasn't going to give her anything. He swung the sword down, finally landing a hit on the Spartan, one that sliced clean through an arm... A metallic arm.

"Argh!" Kat cried out as the nervous system interface showed its drawback. The Atlas technology was incredible, allowing Kats arm to not only function as a prosthetic replacement, but to let her feel things, it was as close to getting her arm back as one could be with metal, getting all the necessary feelings and reactions a normal arm would.

The problem with it was that when severed it hurt, not as much as when a normal arm was cut. It hurt a lot more than that.

Kat screamed in agony as Turak kicked her in the guts, sending her flying into the wall, the worrying crack that sounded indicated he'd broken all her ribs as she slumped down against the wall, coughing upblood as she lay there.

"Kat!" Jorge cried, his reaction over his friend coming at exactly the wrong moment; he stopped for a split second and that was all Turak needed to send Jorge flying.

Turak raised a leg and stomped down on the chest of the crumpled Spartan.

"I respect you two, you're more worthy companions than the pathetic Six." He said a strange look of respect on his face as he looked down at the pair of them. "At the very least you two didn't plot behind my back, at least you two met your death with honour..."

Turak raised his sword over his head, ready to bring it down into Jorge.

Kat screamed, not at the pain from her hand, but at the fact she couldn't do anything in this situation, Turak turned to smile at her, determined to make sure it hurt... Only for his face to drop as Kat ran at him.

She forced herself off the ground; running at Turak, she had no real idea what she was doing, she made plans, she didn't think of things at random, her mistakes got people killed with the improvising that followed, she shouldn't be doing this, this was crazy, this was bonkers, this, this...

This was what a Spartan should be doing.

A mad grin sprang to Kat's face and that wasn't the only thing to spring onto Kat's face.

This time it was Turak's turn to pause at a fatal moment, his shock as the Spartan began to build up a glowing blue field around her, which exploded out wards, the light staggering him backwards as Kat drove her fractured metal arm through his sword arm.

"Ha!" Kat yelled as the fleshy residue broke free and the Elite staggered backwards.

He looked up, he did not like his situation, Jorge was standing up and both of them had swords in their hands, his sword was lost and one of his arms was unusable, not the one his goddess had given him, but he was hurt and they were back at full strength. Even missing a hand the female was to strong.

"Forgive me, please forgive me!" He cried, diving backwards and down an escape hatch, a pod flying out of the ship as he ran. Turak was running, he would never forgive himself for this, he could never, he had let her down, well, he wasn't going down without paying them back.

He pulled up a screen, he just had to send the distruct code and.

"Uh oh, someone's being naughty." And infuriatingly smug voice sang over the pods radio.

"What?" Turak said, trying to resend the destruct code, only to have a crude cartoon of an Elite wearing a dunce cap appear on screen, his tong pointing out at a dumb angle.

"Someone's been a bad boy!" The voice said, a glowing human appearing in front of him, a cruel smile on her face as she grinned at the Elite.

"What, what are you doing!" He yelled, looking at the Forerunner AI who smiled and said.

"Punishing you, you've ruined my ship, broken so many systems I can't even begin imagine where I'm going to begin fixing it, you've horribly tortured and mutilated plenty of Faunus, some of them children by the way... So yeah, I have no sympathy for you what's so ever. Oh don't worry, you'll get back to her... and this thing is going to go boom."

Turak gasped in shock, he needed to stop, this, he had to warn his lady, he...

"Don't bother, that pod's uncrackable, you aren't getting out of it and its reactor is going to overload. Until then please enjoy five hours of the Pumpkin peat Jingle on loop." Seven said, smiling one last evil grin as she vanished and the obnoxious theme began to play.

"ARRRRGGGGGHHHH!" Turak cried as give long hours began.

...

"What did you do?" Kat asked, grinning as Sevn reappeared at her console.

"Left that ship steeling bastard going away present, sadly it won't do as much damage as I'd like but at the very least it'll piss them off." Seven said as she took control over her ship. She grinned brightly as the various readings translated to English and became something reasonable.

"Now let's kill those Covenant fucks." She said as all over the ship doors slammed shut, then the thought about it, she could suck the air out of the room's like she originally planned, but that was boring. "I know, I'll add some gasses and wait for them to start firing." She said, beaming as one of the Grunts in a nervous panic fired and ignited his section.

"So, let's get these people home." Seven said, turning her ship around and then swearing as a console sparked.

"Fuck!" She swore, moving over to the window to look out as various bits of the ship fell to the ground. "I lost my favourite floaty bit." She pouted, watching as the huge chunk of metal fell off into the sea bellow.

Kat walked up to watch as it fell, before turning and saying to Seven.

"You just gotta hate them haven't you?" She said, scowling down at her hand, wondering how much it was gonna cost to get it fixed.


	51. Chapter 51

Chapter 51: I want a damn explanation

"Wow... How the hell did they ever take the island?" Six asked, looking at what Kali and her band had managed to do while they got control of the vehicle bay (Which was very easy given there were a total of four gaurd's there)

"There are a lot more of them on the ship." Kali explained, looking at Warg and Dab as Six's group walked up to them.

"There okay." Six said simply, gesturing over his shoulders. "Ask Sam, kids got balls."

"He's a boy, I'd rather hope he did." Seven said, a full scale model of her appearing in front of Six, projected down from the Forerunner ship she'd taken control of.

"Six, who is..." Emile began to ask.

"Emile, meet Seven, she's the reason we made it over here in the first place." Six explained before turning to Seven. "Seven, meet Emile."

"Charmed." Seven said, holding her hand out and grinning at the Spartan. "I like the skull in the visor, real subtle."

"And I like the hat." Emile said simply, doing his best to shake the AI's construct's hand (Given there was nothing to grip this is a lot harder than it sounds.)

"Thanks!" She said, doing a happy bounce on the spot as the latest edition to her model made its self visible.

"Why the Tricorn?" Six asked, looking at her as she blushed.

"Well, it's appropriate now... I mean, the Solitude is my ship." Seven said, playing with the new hat on her head as Kali moved forward.

"You're in control of the ship?" She asked, looking nervously at Seven.

"Yup, back in the hands of its proper owner." Seven said, before leaning in closer and looking hard at Kali. "Hold on... Your DNA, I've seen something similar before and there's another match similar to it on board the ship..."

"Now that you mention it, she does look kinda familiar..." Six muttered; leaning in a little bit herself. "Yellow eyes, black ears... Erm, Mrs Kali does the name Blake mean anything to you?" Six asked tentatively, looking at the Cat Faunus who's eyes lit up.

"You've seen her!" Kali's eyes lit up as Six said the cat girls name.

"Yes, she's a classmate of mine at Beacon."

"Beacon, oh my, so she did..." She didn't say anything else coherent, what she did do was pull six into a hug.

"Okay, this is weird, normally I pull people into hugs." Six said, patting Kali on the back.

"Wait you do?" Emile asked, looking at Six in shock. "Since when?"

"Erm... About two months ago... Give or take a few days, actually... hang on..." A series of numbers and letters flashed over Sevens eyes as she thought about something, calibrating it for a second. "Well shit, Happy birthday Six!"

"Wait what?" Six said, turning to look at Seven; surprise in every pour of the Spartans face.

"Yeah, wow, sorry, totally slipped my mind what with my digging... urgh, I need to talk to Ozpin, tell ya what, let me get the gravity well going and get everyone we found off the ship; I'll call him after that." Seven said, gesturing towards the base of the ship as the familiar circular hole in its base opened, except this time the people it let off, not trap them on board.

The first person down was tall, really tall, his broad shoulders and muscular physic putting him at odds with any Spartan.

"Ghira!" Kali cried, ignoring Six's shock and running towards the man.

"Guessing that's Blakes dad." Six said, looking over to Seven who nodded.

"Yup, if his DNA is anything to go by anyway... Which it should, given; you know... Parenting." Seven said, messing with her tricorn again.

"Would make sense." Six commented as Emile walked over.

"Sorry who is this Blake Person? Forgive me but I'm a bit out of the loop." He said looking at Six.

"Oh right, she's a friend from Beacon, hang on..." Six muttered, reaching into the pouch on the side of her armor and extracting her Scroll. Booting the device up and digging into her photo gallery.

"The black haired one right?" Emile asked, looking at the picture Six was showing him.

"Yup, thats her."

"Who's her friend?" Emile asked, smiling behind his helmet at the attractive blond sitting next to Blake.

"That's her girlfriend Yang, I think you two would get along well." Six said. Emile became very glad over his helmet visor so Six couldn't see his face fall.

"Yup, that's Ruby opposite Yang, the girl next to her is Weiss, she's rich and Ruby's Girlfriend, the girl with Rabbit ears is Velvet and her girlfriends just next to her, Do not mention clothes around Coco, it will end badly! And the girl with red hair next to me is Ilia." Six said, smiling as she showed her the group picture she had taken once Ilias bed had been completed; she was intentionally hiding part of the screen, she wanted him to see them in the flesh first.

"Let me guess, she's Kat's girlfriend?" Emile asked sarcastically, surprised when Six shot hima dirty look.

"No she's mine actually." Six said, her face hardening.

"Six, are there any straight girls at this Beacon place?" Emile asked, seriously wondering if the numbers where reverse on this world or something.

"Well I'm straight you skull carving git." A new voice said, Six leaned over and grinned as she saw the speaker; Only somewhat surprised to see all three of them in their armor, even if only one of them possessed it when they set off.

Six also noted that the speakers arm appeared to be sparking.

"Oh for fucks sake Kat, that was expensive." Six said, grinning as she walked up to her.

"Oh cry me a river, you try losing a hand, it fucking hurts." She said, smiling as she walked up to Six loving the feeling of having her armor back (it having returned a few minutes after her blast wave she summoned) only then noticing who had been talking to Six and enquiring over her sexual preference. "Emile?"

"Kat...?" He said, looking her up and down in shock, he knew they were here, but, actually seeing her again in the flesh, it was...

"Good to see you Noble four." Carter said, walking up next to Kat, looking at his squad mate, his expression impossible to read (The helmet being the reason for that)

"Carter..." Emile said, reaching up and taking his helmet off.

Six was honestly surprised, more in the fact that he had a head under his helmet, in all honesty Six was expecting another helmet underneath the original. It was an intresting face, Emile had dark skin and scars covering his face. Six thought she had it bad and every other aspect of her body could probably match him, but not the face. Emiles face looked like he'd taken to sharpening all his knives on it, every scar stood out massively despite the more youthful appearance four fifths of Noble team now sported (Also while Six couldn't say for certain having never seen it before, but she suspected the black hair underneath was the same as it had been before)

As Six soaked in Emile's face the final member of Noble team approached them.

"It's not just him."Said final member said. Emile turned around and broke into a gigantic smile as he saw him.

"Jorge, you made it big guy..." He said slowly, holding a hand out at a forty five degree angle pointing at the sky.

Jorge returned the gesture and appeared to try and crush Emiles hand. Six wasn't entirely sure what was going on; but she suspected it was a thing between the two of them.

"Yeah, I made it." He then looked over at Six and grinned, saying something that made Six's stomach plummeted and she shivered violently. "Hope you made it count."

"I... I..." Six said, wanting to look Jorge in the face, this was the best time, she had to tell him, now was the right time, now... "Nope, can't do it!" Six said, her energy appearing to come back before her armor dispelled and she crashed backwards, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

"Six!" Emile cried before Jorge reached out and gripped his shoulder.

"It's a side effect of summoning the armor, she'll be fine; she's just a little bit tired." He explained, looking a little bit sombre as he said it.

"Jorge..." Kat began to say, trying to explain what Six apparently hadn't been able to say before her armor flashed, pulling most of the sounding sand and some debris towards her as she collapsed to the ground.

"Kat!" Carter cried, before his armor failed and he collapsed as well.

Emile looked at the three Spartans, wondering what happened to them.

"Guess they all have it." Jorge muttered. Walking over to Kat, looking at her sleepy grey eyes as he picked her up. "Never expected that to happen though, I wonder why Kat gets the extra effects."

"I don't know..." Emile muttered, suddenly feeling like all his energy was gone. He looked down at his glowing red hands; knowing what was coming. "...Oh for fuc..." He never finished as his armor flashed away and he fell to the ground.

"Oh come on!" Jorge cried, wondering where he should put his four friends to keep them out of the sun.

...

"Hey, you okay?" A familiar voice asked Six as she slowly woke up, sunlight streaming into the room from the slatted windows.

"Ilia..." Six muttered, trying to force herself up as she looked at her Girlfriend who nodded.

"Yeah, welcome back, you've been out of it for a few hours." She explained, walking over to a sink built into the wall and bring her a glass of water. "Drink this, it's extremely easy to get dehydrated out here."

"I'm more interested in what you're doing out here." Six said, gulping down the drink in one go. "Didn't you say it was extremely dangerous for you to be here?"

"It is, but I came because A: I wanted to look after you. And B: It's safe now."

Six tilted her head to look at her girlfriend.

"How?" She asked. Ilia didn't answer, she didn't say or do anything. However she didn't need to, because the answer came to Six from inside her head.

 _I agreed to come along and keep her safe._

Or specifically the answer came from the inside of a three meter tall aliens head being sent to hers.

"Fin?" Six said in suprise.

 _Yes, I came in with Ozpin._

"Ozpin? He's here?" Six said, looking around, almost expecting to see him standing in the room with them.

"Yeah, Seven wanted to talk to him about something." Ilia said, putting her hand on Six's chest as she tried to get up.

"Oh no you don't." She said, smirking at the pout on the Spartans face (it made it hard for her to see Six as the hardened alien super solider she apparently was) "Seven ran a scan on you, you're exhausted, you can summon your armor more than the others but you abused the crap of that particular skill." Ilia explained, sounding like she was just regurgitating everything Seven had told her word for word. "And as such you're exhausted and you lost about ten kilos of weight, give you where on the skinny side already..."

"Not a good thing?" Six finished, happily fantasying about the main dining hall at Beacon and wondering if Nora was up for another Pancake eating contest.

"Not even close, so I'm keeping an eye on you until we head back... Once Jorge has talked to you." Ilia said, smiling warmly and crouching down next to Six and taking the Spartans hand as Jorge entered the room.

"Hey..." Six said, the conversation she's been having with him before she passed out painfully forcing its way back into her head.

"Hey." He said simply, standing next to Six and eventually sitting down cross legged next to her (The bed Six was laying on was only a foot off the ground so if he'd been standing he'd be over Six foot taller than her.)

"Hi..." Six said weekely, Ilia gently squeezed her hand as Six struggled to make eye contact with Jorge.

"Look... About Reach, I worked it out... It's gone isn't it?" He said slowly.

Six nodded, unable to say anything.

 _Well here we go, he knows._

 _Well, we hid the fact we're a colossal fuck up for a while._

 _It was going to come out eventually wasn't it?_

 _Yeah, it kinda was..._

"I worked it out, you didn't say anything about it and every time I tried to you shifted the conversation, that and well, well... You don't tend to die after the Covenant are dealt with and I figured nothing short of a fleet could stop you; I'm guessing it was glassed?" He said, looking at Six who once again couldn't give a verbal answer simply nodding in response.

"I'm sorry to here that, sorry I couldn't save it, sorry you had to take my place..." Jorge said.

Tears broke from Six's eyes as she looked at him.

"Stop..."

"Six..."

"Stop acting like you fucked up!" Six yelled, looking at him, anger and sadness eteched into every word she spoke. "I'm the one who fucked up, you tried to save everyone, I failed to do what you told me to do!"

"Six what are you on about..." Jorge said, looking down as tears flowed down Six's face.

"Why do everyone forgive me!? 'Tell 'em to make it count!' 'You're on your own Noble!' For fuck's sake I left Emile to die! Why is everyone okay with me! Why does everyone keep forgiving me! I fuck things up so badly I, I, What the fuck is wrong with you all!?"

To her surprise her outburst didn't make Jorge look ashamed or abashed, he actually laughed in response.

"Ha, Six, you did what you could, I'll admit I don't know the full story of what happened after I left Reach, but I know it wasn't intentional. You did what you could, I know you did."

"But..."

"No." Jorge said simply, looking at her sternly. "No blaming yourself or guilt over something you had no control over, Emile will forgive you and everyone else already has; that includes me." Jorge said, smiling at Six. "Ilia, look after her." He said, getting up and leaving, stopping at the door to send Six the thumbs up before leaving.

...

It had been a strange day for Beacons headmaster, getting a call from an AI insisting she drag herself to Menagerie in person had been odd, the fact he'd felt compelled to go and do it was even more observed, although the fact he'd actually done it...

"So Seven, I do believe this is the first chance we've had to have a proper conversation; Might I compliment you on your fine choice in headwear?" Ozpin said, having just finished a meeting with the Belladonnas; mostly to update them about their daughter and assure them that she was fine... Even if she didn't want to talk to them at the moment.

Ozpin wondered if he was getting on a bit to much...

"You may." Seven said, smiling and admiring her tricorn, she really did love this hat.

"Then I will, that is a lovely hat you have there."

"Thank you."

"I would also like to thank you for saving the life of noble Six and her friends, I owe them a great deal." Ozpin said, thinking back to the virus Six had stopped and the considerable damage she'd avoided because of it.

"Yes, never saw that happening, then again I've had my world view shaken quite a bit ever since I started digging through your files." Seven said, looking hard at Ozpins eyes.

"I did wonder if you'd go investigating." He responded coolly, wishing he had something to drink with him.

"Well I did, but I wasn't interested in you originally, it was just a filing error on some documents and... wow, I went down that rabbit hole hard and fast."

"Filing error?" Ozpin asked, looking at the AI with an interested look.

"Yes, four transfer students data did not match up, the documents were created months after they should have been, but where dated correctly and the date of creation as hidden, I did some digging, bounced all over the world and look, I know who Salem is... And to some extent you."

Ozpin looked at Seven calmly before speeking.

"What do you want to know then?" He asked, looking at the AI.

"I, A lot, but I want them to know; Noble Team I mean, they can help; but... The first thing I want to know... Amber."

"What about her?" He asked, wondering how much digging Seven had been doing and how she'd avoided being detected.

"If I fix her, which I can believe me, I fixed a plasma wound to the chest, as in all the way through. Point is, if I fixed her... would she be safe?"

Ozpin sighed and leaned back, thinking to the poor Fall Maiden.

"I, I don't know... the powers never been split before, but it's only meant to transfer at the moment of death, if she wasn't dead..."

"She could get the power back." Seven finished.

Ozpin didn't say anything for a minute so Seven spoke up.

"Look, you know it's better for her to have a chance rather than leave her as she is; she'll be in danger all her life, if I help she'll at least be able to defend herself."

"I, Yes I believe your right, what do you need?" Ozpin said, still not sure if this was the right thing, there was a chance this could go wrong, the fall maiden power might still try to leave her even if she was alive, but even then, leaving her as she was...

"I've got what I need on Merlots Island, as soon as I can get her there I can fix her." Seven said, looking at him. "You want me to do it? I might need some more material I can't guarantee..."

"I have walked this earth for centuries; I don't mind surrendering some of my old parts if I have to."

"Thank you... I have more to tell you, you need to hear this, she's planning something, we have until the end of the tournament, her plans changed but the date hasn't."

"Then we must be ready."

"Yes we must... You need to tell them; they've fought in a war and they'll help you, please tell Noble team once they wake up." Seven pleaded, looking at Ozpin who sighed.

"Yes, yes I will, they should have had more time, but... Tomorrow. I'll tell them tomorrow."

 _Authors note: A quick explanation on Noble teams semblances. All of them summon their armor (Even Jorge is he ever takes the armor off) Each of them builds up a field of energy before they summon this , starting as a faint glow and the armor appears when it 'flashes' or finishes its build up; however, the result of the build up causes different side effects depending on the user._

 _Six's flash is a very minor thing, it's not as bright as the others but she can do it multiple times without getting to tired (a side effect of this is that she cannot maintain it for as long as the others)_

 _Emile's armor is actually extremely hot to the touch shortly after he summons it (no one's realised that yet since it hasn't happenedyet)_

 _Cater's armor is slower to build up but it takes more damage to dispel it._

 _Kat's thing (and the main reason I'm writing this)Is that she generates a blast wave that forces everything in her surrounding area, the reverse happens when she disables the armor._

 _Anyway, thanks for reading my explanation on how this stuff I haven't explained well works._


	52. Chapter 52

Chapter 52: When you have know where left to run

Turak was in hell.

That was the only thing he could conclude, he was trapped in a flying bomb that was going to hurt his lady and he couldn't get out, he was stuck listening to that fucking song.

He cradled his head as the pod got closer to his lady's castle.

It landed in the court yard, sitting in the open air as it's inhabitant struggled to get out.

 _What is the pod waiting for?_

Turak growled in frustration, slamming his fists against the pod. The tune was still playing.

 _Pumpkin Pete's cereal is a vital part of a complete breakfast!_

"I'm going to murder whoever wrote this fucking thing." Turak scowled, his Elite dignity completely forgotten as the fucking red head appeared on the screen again. "And her, I am going to kill her."

It took another agonizing hour before the jingle stopped, Turak wished it hadn't.

His lady was walking towards his pod.

"No, My Lady get back! Get back!" He yelled, slamming on the wall of the pod with his destroyed arm and one Grimm arm.

The pod was beeping, each one getting faster and louder as Salem moved forward. She wondered why Turak was back like this, this wasn't like him...

Then the pod exploded. For Turak the few second explosion was agonising to sit through, it seamed so much longer than it was, he saw every detail as the orange glow from within exploded outwards; raging through the courtyard and turning the whole world orange until the light died.

Smoke flooded from every corner, Turak could see nothing as the fog enveloped him, He scrambled to his feet, the shields his lady had provided him with had kept him safe, maybe she made it as well.

"My Lady! My Lady!"

"Ah it was you Turak, care to explain what happened here?" Her voice said, the sound coming from somewhere in the fog.

"My lady, I am sorry, I have failed you... I lost the ship, I tried to run, I, I..." He said, wishing he could think of the right thing to say, but he couldn't, all he could do was try and get an explination out.

"Shhhhh." His lady said, emerging from the smoke as the explosion cleared.

It had done damage to the courtyard (Most of it gone now, it more closer resembled a creator now over an actual environment; but his Lady, she was glorious.

She walked out from the fog, smiling gently down at Turak, her beautiful white features complementing her new ensemble.

"My Lady... You, you..."

"You like it?" She asked, smiling down at Turak; admiring her new armor. She had more than one gift from the Forerunners and this was the most personal for her.

A slim suit that contorted to her body, the shoulder amror floating off her arms/ The orange lights shone from every point, the dull grey metallic plating decorated her entire body; only leaving her head exposed.

"It is glorious..." Turak said, his breath taken away by the site of his lady in such a divine suit of armor.

"Thank you... Now... **What happened.** " She said, her voice turning dangerous as she finished speaking. The anger being more what Turak expected he was able to talk properly.

Once he was done speaking his Lady looked down at him.

"It seams my plans need to change." She said coldly, looking down at him.

"My lady I..."

"Turak, gather the White Fang into the main hall." She said simply.

"What... My lady..."

"We have to change the plan. We didn't get the army we wanted from Menagerie and we cannot hope to go unnoticed a second time. However, I'd rather have the Promethean's on my side than the White Fang." She explained.

"But..."

"Do better Turak, the final push is coming soon, make sure your ready for it." She said before departing. "Make sure you get them in their, then leave." She said.

"I, I... I will." Turak stuttered, amazed she was letting him live, truly she was to kind.

"I know you will." She said simply, turning to walk back into her castle.

…

Adam Taurus was on edge. Why were his men called to the main hall? What was going on right now...

"You coming Adam?" On of his lieutenants asked, looking at Adam as he stood outside the main hall.

"No." He said simply, he was not going to listen to that lizards orders, if Salem wanted him to go somewhere she could tell him herself.

The lieutenant stood there for a second, before shrugging and walking into the hall along with the rest of the White Fang Adam had brought with him.

Adam sighed, rubbing his temples as he tried to block out the noise coming from the hall.

He had no idea what to do, He had come to Salem for help, he'd been surprised when she agreed to give it to them. He had honestly expected her to refuse him; but she'd agreed to give it, he'd always wondered whys he agreed to do it.

In a few seconds he knew why.

A loud hum sounded from the inside of the room, a great flow of power was happening, energy was moving, something was turning on.

 _Did she get a sound system or something._

It came in a second, a scream that shook Adam to his bones sounded screamed for about half a second before it stopped.

Adam was never scared, never. He refused to be scared, he pushed the door open by a crack to look inside the room.

 _Where... Oh my..._

Adam's fist's clenched as he saw what was inside the room.

Rows upon rows of robots now stood in the room. All of them standing at attention. Rows and rows of them, each of them armed with glowing orange plasma weapons.

"Glorious isn't it." A voice said from behind Adam. He span around, his had jumped Wilt's handle, gripping it, ready for a fight.

"Turak, what did you do?" He asked, his voice flooded with rage as he looked at the Alien, the merciless eyes looking back at him.

"What my lady asked of me." He said, smiling, reaching for his Energy Sword, he knew what to do with this stragler, he wasn't even worthy to serve his Lady, he would end this quickly.

 _Bang!_

Wilt exploded out of blush and drove itself deep into Turak's face. Adam moved fast, catching his sword with his hands and bringing it around, he couldn't break Turak's shields, not with the charge he had, but the slash still hurt and drove the alien backwards.

Adam was not proud of what he did next, but all he could do was run. Run, run and run as fast as he could. He ran through the castle, he knew how he got in, now all he had to do was get out.

It wasn't that long until Turak yelled for his men to attack the fleeing Adam.

They would regret this mistake. The problem mostly came from the fact Turak was only used to fighting Adam in verbal pissing matches, he'd never actually seen the Faunus in an actual fight, if he had he wouldn't have sent his men to go after him. Adam almost grinned despite himself and what was happening.

 _Ha, they think they have a chance._

Part of that was Adams ego... Unfortunately for them the other part was the skill that gave Adam that ego in the first place.

Wilt sliced through his opponents like it would butter, the Jackal's fell around him, the grunts didn't even stand a chance, the Brutes barley took any effort to cleave through and the Elites... Well they tried.

And learned to there miss fortune that energy swords were not a good idea to use around a sword that absorbed energy and sent it back at its opponent.

The blast waves Wilt unleashed well... Nothing stood in there way.

Adam vaulted over the wall and sprinted towards one of the alien vehicle's, he could get out on one of them.

As he ran towards his target he realised nothing was going to stop them from following him... Well nothing **Was** going to stop him. A few quick slashes to the engines though brought him some time before he jumped into the back of the waiting Banshee.

Adam had no idea what he was going to do, he had just lost his supporters, he had just lot his friend...

Then it hit him, every man he'd brought with him... every woman, every one... They were gone, turned into those... those... things...

Adam didn't know what to do, he had know where.., well, not right now... maybe.

He sighed at the vehicles controls, he did have an option... It wasn't a good one but he did have an option.

 _I supposed I better see if 'The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend' has any truth to it._


	53. Chapter 53

Chapter 53: Will you take the Gauntlet?

The sun rose in Menagerie the next morning, truly it was a marvellous sight. For the first time in a week nothing got in the way of it's beautiful rays, they shone down on the beach and glistened on the water, illuminating the world with warmth and light, to many a Faunus this was a welcome sight after a week of having a hostile alien ship hanging over them this was a welcome experience.

To a Spartan who need rest, well it invoked a drastically different reaction.

"Can we please destroy the sun?" Noble Six asked sleepily, rolling over and burring her face in her pillow, trying to block out the invasive light.

"I think there are problems with doing that..." Ilia said with a smile, raising from the other side of the bed and watching in mild amusement as her girlfriend grabbed the blanket now it was free from her and wrapping herself up in it.

"Stupid physics..." Six muttered, trying to block the sun out.

"Well you might as well get up, the sun isn't going away for quite a few hours." Ilia pointed out, smiling as she walked over to her girlfriend.

"I disagree..." The sleepy Spartan muttered, rolling over while keeping a hand on the pillow so it could continue to block her face.

"Come on, if you're awake enough to hold a conversation with me you're awake enough to get out of bed." Ilia said a smirk persisting as the Spartan resisted.

"No... Don't wanna..." Six muttered, trying to go back to sleep, only to get surprised when Ilia got back in the bed, hooked her hands underneath Six's wrapped up form and levering it off the bed.

 _Thump!_

Six scowled at her giggling partner as she attempted to figure out some way of untangling herself from her bedding.

…

"I see sleeping beauty is finally awake." Emile said from the breakfast table, smirking at the Six who was suffering a major case of bed head.

"Actually She was up first." Six said, gesturing towards Ilia as she sat down at the table.

"You've gotten soft." Emile said, not in a harsh tone, it was a simple acknowledgement of fact and it wasn't wrong, the idea of sleeping past six in the morning would have been unlikely for the Spartan before this all started.

"What I got was a full nights sleep, beside you can't have been up for that long." Six pointed out, trying to look at Emile and not be distracted by the smell of bacon and eggs that was wafting in from the kitchen.

"I've been up for three hours." Emile said, holding his fingers and counting them as he said: "Let's see, got up, did my morning run around the habitable bit of the island with the ODST's, woke the kids up with the fire hose, put them through their basic drills for an hour, then we showed while the kids got the dinning hall... patch of sand, ready. Once they where done with that we made them breakfast, then I ran back here and Miss Belladonna asked me to get everyone up so I woke up Kat, Carter and Jorge... was about to get you when you and Ilia came down the stairs."

"Yeah we noticed you tow shared a room." Kat said, walking in with to milk jugs in her hand that she sat down at the table (Said table was actually four tables placed end to end; the Belladonna's apparently didn't believe in needless excess and normally only used one)

"I swear if you tell Coco..." Six said, really not wanting to deal with the girls reaction to learning that little tid bit about this particular trip.

"We wont." Carter said, walking in with a toast rack under one arm and a tea pot in the other.

"Unless we think it would be funny." Kat smirked as Six shot her a death glare form across the table.

"Kat."

"Oh come on it would be funny." Kat exclaimed, looking at Carter as he sat down next to her.

"That's not important." Carter pointed out.

"Fine... Still though for the sake of blackmail latter did anything happen or?"

"Kat!" Carter, Emile, Six and Ilia all cried out at once.

"Okay first of all, We've been a thing for a week, it's just a little early for that!" Six gasped, looking at Kat with a shocked expression. "And secondly the wall's are really thin here, you'd know if we'd done something!"

"So no then... Dammit." Kat muttered, hoping he hadn't...

"You owe me Kat." Jorge said, walking in an enormous smile on his face only dwarfed by the amount of breakfast supplies he was carrying in his massive arms.

"Yeah, yeah..." She muttered, throwing a Lien card at him which he caught between his teeth as he sat his portion of breakfast down.

"Kat, you're like the ghost of Coco haunting me before she's even dead." Six muttered darkly as Ilia giggled.

"Who's a ghost?" Kali asked as she walked into the room, setting the cuttlery down at the table, taking a second to look at Six's hair (most of which was stuck going sideways) "And Six dear would you like to borrow a hair brush later?"

"No one and I would love to." Six said, grinning weekly as Ghira walked in with the rest of the supply's.

"I can see why." He muttered, also smirking at the Spartans hair.

"Can we eat now?" She asked weekly. The rest of the table nodded and the pair began tearing into their food.

…

"So who cooks better? Kali or Lucy?" Six asked to Jorge as she, Jorge and Emile washed up the plates and left over food from breakfast.

"Lucy." Jorge said without a seconds hesitation.

"Are you saying that because it's true or because she'd your wife?" Six asked, watching as Jorge went red.

"Hand on a second! Big guy has a wife?" Emile asked in shock and surprise.

"Yup, this git went and got her pregnant and wouldn't let us leave before he signed the papers." Six explained as she moved the plates to the drying rack.

"You have a kid!" Emile cried, looking at Jorge, his mouth agape.

" **Will have a kid** , Lucy's only a couple of months pregnant, we wont start seeing anything for a little while yet." Jorge explained (having to resist the urge to laugh at Emile's shocked expression)

"Still a daddy." Six pointed out.

"Geese I've missed a lot since I left haven't I?" Emile said forlornly as he dried the plate he was holding.

"In all fairness most of it happened in the last month or so." Six clarified as she put her last plate on the drying rack.

"Still..." Emile said as Six looked at him in bemusement.

"Hang on a second, you started a school! That's kinda awesome dude." She pointed out.

"It amazed me how many of the kids here didn't know a thing about fighting, I mean I've seen some of the things that live our here and the idea of them being defenceless... No, Wasn't having it." Emile explained, looking out at his home/the main building of the 'Emile School to kicking ass'

"So you taught them how knives worked?" Six asked, remembering Angela's weapon.

"Yup, and swords, and spears... No guns sadly, well until we found the UNSC stuff in that Elephant."

"I was wondering about that..." Six muttered, pointing towards the Elephant Emile had been talking about. It made sense to Six that he'd want to live in one, the things were nearly indestructible and slow as they may be it was still a massive hulking tank; anyone would want one.

"Yeah, but that thing was a treasure trove of stuff, finally got to teach the kids how to shoot, and found some ammo for Tusky here." Emile said, gesturing to the Shotgun on his back. (he had a custom made magnetic harness on his back to hold them in place.

"You named your gun?" Six asked, looking at Emile, a blank expression on her face.

"You named your gun 'Tusky'" Jorge asked, a similar expression adorning his face.

"I name all my weapons." Emile said simply, pointing at his SPI armor (which was sat in a spare chair in the corner) specifically to all it's knives.

"You name... two, four, six, eight, twelve, twenty knives?" Six asked in disbelief as she counted all the weapons strapped to the suit.

"Twenty one if you include the one you gave me, so yeah I've got Reach..." He said, indicating his original knife. "... lets see, we got the Throat Twins, Beowolf Killer, snake Skinner, Griffin Clipper, Juglar, Thigh's one through five, Gut Spiller, Skull Carver, Hair Cutter, Shin's one to three, Shoulder Stab, Tit Stabber..."

"Hang on what!" Six yelled, looking at Emile in shock.

"That bitch learnt the hard way that hunting Faunus was a shitty idea." He said coldly; Six's eyes lit up.

"What the fuck!" Six yelled.

"I know... That's why along with Tit Stabber we also have Bicep Slash and Dick Thrust."

"I, I... I..." Six said, her fist's clenching tightly as she began to shake with rage.

"They were a one off and trust me they ain't pulling that shit again... Nor are they passing on their stupidity." He muttered darkly, Six enjoyed a sick grin as Emile said that.

"Good one mate." Jorge said, smiling at Emile.

"That one got me a lot of props around the island, my class went from three kids to twenty... it's down to fourteen now..." He said, remembering the Robots that had attacked the island (Most of which were stuck inside the Solitude as they sadly had p[roved inflammable.)

"Didn't Seven say she was going to try and reverse the process?" Six asked, sure the AI had said something like that during the party last night (Six had been there mostly for the junk food, she needed to put weight back on fast)

"She also said she didn't have much hope on that front." Jorge muttered darkly.

"Way to bring the mood down." Six scowled.

"Hey." Carter said from the door having just walked in. "Ozpin and Seven say they need to talk to us, you done with the dishes yet?"

"Yeah just about." Six said heading towards Carter.

…

"So... I suspect you're wondering why we called you here?" Seven said to Noble team as the sat around in the living room.

"I was a bit curious about that, are you going to tell us why the back end of your ship detached this morning?" Kat asked, gesturing out the window to the Solitude, which hung in the air with it's back half distinctly not attached.

"Erm, no it wasn't about that, although if you want to know why; I'm making use of the terraforming engine; the thing was designed to make any planet habitable for the Forerunners... who are close enough to humans/Faunus that the system should make the rest of this island habitable."

"I thought the desert was only half the problem, how the hell is a terraforming engine going to deal with the wild life that are the main reason no one lives there?" Kat asked.

"Its not." Seven said simply as a streak of orange light exploded out of the engine and shot of some where on the island. "The defence systems dealing with that."

"Anyway." Ozpin said, feeling like they where getting off subject. "We called you here because... Well... The world is in danger."

The words hung in the air for a second before Six asked:

"How can we help?" She said, her fist clenching.

"It'll be dangerous." Ozpin said, only to be interupted when Six said.

"Sir, I lost one home." Jorge said from the side. "I have a family here now, I ain't losing that."

"None of us are." Kat said.

"We'll give everything for our home, we're Spartans." Carter added.

"Nothings stopping me this time." Emile said, holding onto Reach's handle as he said it, as if holding the knife was giving him more strength/determination.

"Very well then." Ozpin said, knowing when an argument wasn't going to happen. "This is going to take a lot of explaining... But you will help?"

"Yes, what do you need help with?" Six said simply.

"Very well then, There exists a being on this planet, she goes by the name of Salem..."

"Didn't that crazy Elite mention her?" Six asked, sure she'd heard Turak spout that name during that fight.

"Probably, she must have gotten him under her control, anyway, she's getting ready for her final push." Seven explained, looking at the group.

"How long have we got?" Carter asked, his face going serious as he looked intently at the pair.

"Not long, we have a month." Seven said. "She plans to attack at the end of the Vital festival, she's got the Covenant and the Promethean on her side."

"What about the White Fang?" Six asked, looking at Seven.

"In light of their failure to secure most of Menageries population Salem will use up other disposable organic matter... I don't think we'll be seeing them again."

"Okay then, any idea what sort of numbers we're talking about?" Carter inquired; his planing face clearly on his face.

"We're not sure, about seven hundred Covenant troops and... Not sure on the Promethean's, some of them are AI based, if she could work out the AI's she could theoretically make thousands of them, but if we assume she can't (which is a fairly good assumption because judging by how much bodging she's been doing with the Promethean's we've seen) Then maybe, given the number of people who were taken and the amount of White Fang reported missing over their radio waves; about three and a half thousand.,,"

"Fuck." Six said as she gripped the chair tighter.

"Yeah... Luckily we've got help, the Atlesian military can help fight those numbers, the amount of Knights they have with us should be enough to deal with them with the help of some huntsmen." Ozpin explained. "Are main problem however, comes from this woman."

Seven projected a hologram of said woman, she looked familiar to Six.

"I thought she was an exchange student?" She said, finally remembering where she'd seen this person before.

"That's just her cover." Seven said, bringing up a series of documents. "This is who she actually is, it's amazing how many arrest warrants have been put on this lady."

"So she's working with this Salem person?" Carter inquired.

"She is very high up in her command structure actually and given what her goal seems to be it makes perfect sense for her to want someone like Cinder." Ozpin said, looking at the woman with a certain degree of loathing Six had never seen in his face before.

"What did she do?" Kat asked, looking at the woman in interest.

"She attack and nearly killed one of my best warriors, she's currently paralysed." Ozpin said as Seven projection switched form Cinder to show a different woman.

She was just above average hight, she seamed young and appeared to be in good shape... with the exception of her face which was a mess of scars, most of which covered her right eye.

"What the fuck happened to her?" Six asked, her face agast as she looked at the girl.

"Cinder attempted to steal something from her. Not some possession, but something that was a part of her, you see... Amber was... still is to some extent, a Fall Maiden." Ozpin explained.

"A what?" Emile asked from the corner.

"The Maidens are... Unusual to say the least." Seven said, her body glitching out slightly.

"Seven are you okay?" Jorge asked, looking at the AI as she solidified.

"Yeah, just... Wow they hurt my brain." Seven explained, before looking to Ozpin.

"Hang on... Maidens... Aren't they just an old myth? Like I've seen movies based around the story..." Six said, thinking back to the movie she'd picked at random on her first sleep over with Coco and Velvet.

"All Myths and legends are based on something and in this case the story is fairly accurate." Ozpin said.

"Hang on, so there are four girls walking around the world with magical powers reflecting the four seasons who may or may not have fought a dragon at some point in skimpy armor?" Six clarified, unable to throw off how completely bonkers that was.

"Yes, even the bit about the dragon, although they were fully armored." Ozpin stated. "And currently it's five women, Cinder stole half of Amber's powers."

"How do you steel half of someone's powers?" Emile asked, looking at Ozpin in interest.

"By interrupting the transfer." Seven explained. "And what this means is we have a paralysed Maiden who is on the verge of death and ready to give the rest of her power to Cinder... and Believe me that's a very bad thing."

"The original plan was to attempt to transfer her power to another host... However, Seven has provided another option to us and this is where we need your help." Ozpin explained. As Seven began talking:

"I can use Project Ostium to fix her spine... Assuming 498 will grow the fuck up... Which he will. Anyway, we need you to protect Amber as we take her to Merlot's Island."

"Is she likely to fall under attack?" Jorge asked, looking at Ozpin and Seven.

"If Cinder sees her, yes." Seven explained.

"Ergo, we need to disguise her and one of you needs to fly her over, after that do what you feel is appropriate, train, spend time with your loved ones..." He looked at Jorge as he said that. "...And get ready, This will likely be Salem's final attack... If we fail..."

"We wont. Not this time." Six said, a fire alight behind her eyes, she had to many people she cared about here. Under no circumstances was she losing any of them.


	54. Chapter 54

Chapter 54: Saying goodbye sucks

With the revelation that their new home was in serious danger Noble Team elected to leave the next day. It wasn't a nice thing to do, the island was friendly and Emile had friends and a life here... Actually...

"You're not going to stay at Beacon?" Six asked, looking at Emile in surprise and shock.

"I want to be with you guys but... I kinda owe a lot to the people here, plus I've got my school..."

"I thought the ODSTs were going to run it?" Jorge said, looking at Emile who nodded.

"Yeah, but I want to come back and continue teaching... But I am going to help out at Beacon first; I ain't leaving you guys to have all the fun." He said with a smirk.

He then looked at Six who was looking down at the ground, not saying a word.

"Six?"

"I, I... It's nothing." She said, trying to force a smile onto her face. "I'm going to... Go somewhere."

She then turned and walked off, glad she's turned around before the tears started flowing.

"What's up with her?" Emile asked, looking at the retreating Spartan; then he moved to look at the rest of Noble Team who wasn't making eye contact with him. Only to have his attention broken when someone slapped him hard around the face.

It said something that Emile, one of the toughest Spartans around felt it.

He looked and saw Ilia standing in front of him.

"Is it really that bad?" He asked, looking at the Chameleon girl who simply nodded angrily.

"I think Six feels like you're going to leave her immediately after she found you." Ozpin said simply, looking at Emile and having warped in out of nowhere.

"But, I'm going back..." Emile said, surely Six wasn't that bothered.

"You just said you intended to leave as soon as we're done." Kat said simply.

"Yeah but..." Emile looked around, shocked he was hearing this. "... I need to be here and, She's a Spartan! Surely she can handle this!"

"Physically yes, but unlike you Six hasn't been living as a Spartan for the last six months." Ilia said, her fist's clenched. "She's been living as a normal girl and one of her friends basically said he didn't give a shit about her."

"But, I didn't mean it like that..." Emile said slowly, wondering what kind of mental gymnastics Six was pulling off in her head.

"It doesn't matter what you meant." Ilia said simply.

"It kinda does." Emile pointed out.

"Whether it was intentional or not she didn't read it how you intended it." Carter explained. "Look I haven't done a lot of research into how Six has been while at Beacon but look at this."

He gestured towards Seven who pulled up a screen, the Beacon logo in the corner with the words:

 _Student medical record for: Noble Six_

 _Written by: Nurse Locasta._

 _ **Initial report:** I have no idea what happened to this girl but I want to hug her/slap some sense into her... as if she wasn't injured enough. _

_Noble Six is amazingly healthy given the numerous physical injury's adorning her skin. Despite the numerous scars and burns (Special attention should be applied to the twin burns on her front and back) She seams to be fine internally (once the injury's from the initiation were healed)_

 _Most worryingly though are the clear signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) she is suffering. While being kept over night she constantly muttered in her sleep, the only legible words are: Carter, Kat, Jun, Jorge and Emile. Who these names belong to is unknown. However, they are clearly important to her and judging by her disturbed sleep pattern and frequent screaming I have concluded she is having nightmares over them and that they are most likely not with us anymore._

 _I have no idea how to help this girl, she refuses psychiatric help and wont answer my questions about the names. Combined this with the lack of an Aura (the stress of these losses may have caused this inability) and I can only conclude she should not attended Beacon._

 _Addendum: Noble Six is a frequent visitor and suffers frequent injury's whenever she attends sparing lessons, why she refuses to leave I do not know; I also do nto understand why she is being sent on a live mission, she should not be here._

 _ **Second Report:** After three months of absence Noble Six has returned severely malnourished and sporting a few new scars (Nothing serious though that hadn't already healed.) _

_I have insisted to her that she eat more and thankfully is listening to me. She is also able to sleep after an excursion to the Emerald forest to make graves for her dead friends. (Which she eventually confirmed.)_

 _Thankfully she is improving and has successfully made friends with fellow students. She appears to be on good terms with Team's RWBY and JNPR. Her strongest connection appear to be with Coco Adel and Velvet Scarlatina._

 _Coco has described Six as: 'A hardass on the outside and sad on the inside, not dangerous but weird and naive. I probably need to tell her about some things' She has also said the girl is amazingly skilled and competent at numerous things and helped plan out most of there strategy's on the mission._

 _Velvet has stated: 'I don't think she ever really slept, she was always awake when we went to bed and always got up before us, she claims she's fine but I think she's lying. I, I think she's missing something important to her, she's getting better and she saved my neck more times than I can count while we were out on the field but... That girl needs friends.'_

 _ **Third report:** Noble Six has seen enormous improvement in this last month, most of which can be assigned to one fact: Carter and Kat are alive and according to Six she has evidence that the others are also alive. _

_Noble Six is finally able to relax and enjoy herself and has also managed to manifest an Aura and semblance over her time away. Hopefully this means she wont be as frequent a visitor to me._

"I, I didn't realise." Emile said simply.

"How could you? none of us were there for then, although it does explain why she broke down crying when she saw us." Kat said simply, remembering the very out of character feeling hug (Only at the time did this feel unusual though, Six had proven to be a very huggy girl once Kat had gotten to know her)

"I need to explain this to her." Emile said, knowing what he had to say.

"Yes. You do." Ilia said, her usually warm eyes icy cold as she looked at him.

…

Six wasn't sure where she was. She'd gotten lost and had just kept walking, now she was somewhere in the tropical jungle area of the island. As she walked she looked up and saw the back end of the Solitude floating water up and raining it down on the desert, occasionally blasting some random Grimm out in the wild.

 _Stupid, Stupid!_

 _Oh come on he was being an ass!_

 _Yeah and storming off is so bloody helpful!_

 _You're being hysterical._

 _I'm aloud you fucking..._

 _Hey I'm the one with the foul language here bitch_

 _You little!_

"This isn't helping!" Six yelled, throwing her arms into the air and looking up to the sky in frustration.

A side effect of this venting strategy was that she walked into someone, a very short green haired girl with a tail poking out of her dress.

"Argh! I, Sorry Angela." Six muttered, looking down at he girl who was scowling at her.

"You better be." She shot back, the venom in her voice noticeable (Turned out her semblance actually aloud her to produce venom in her mouth {She was immune to it} and was seriously considering shooting some at Six)

"Okay what did I do?" Six asked, already in a foul mood and not at all intrested in putting up with the girls shit.

"Like you don't know!" She scowled.

"I really don't actually. So would you please tell me; then I can tell you why you're wrong." Six shot back, a small part of her wondering why she was having a pissing match with some who wasn't even in double digits yet.

"He's leaving and it's your fault!" Angela yelled at the Spartan. Who just sort of stared at her with her mouth agape.

"Hold on who?" Six asked, all her rage lost to simple befuddlement.

" **Emile!"** Angela cried at full volume. "He's leaving and it's all your fault, why would you do that! What do you gain from it, I bet you want him, don't you!"

"The fuck are you on about?" Six cried, her brain almost cracked in half as she tried to process what Angela was yelling at her.

"Emile! I bet you like him, Don't you! I wont let you have him! I wont, I wont! I, I... I..." Angela said, starting out with a full yell but dissolved into a stammer by the end of the statement.

"Of course I like him." Six said. Angela went to yell again but Six put a hand over her mouth and looked her full in the face. "He's a friend, purley platonic, I think Ilia would kill me if I ever tried to get a boyfriend."

"Why would she do that?" Angela asked, her rage also lost to be replaced with confusion.

"Because she's my girlfriend." Six said simply, grinning at the confused look on the small girls face.

"Wait... You're a girl. How can you have a girlfriend?" Angela asked.

"I'm weird." Six replied simply. "As are most of my friends now I think abut it."

"Emile doesn't like boys does he!?" Angela burst out, her eyes bulging with fear as she looked around, as if a sign saying 'Emile likes guys' Was going to be around somewhere.

"Not as far as I know..." Six said, trailing off until something finally clicked. "You like him don't you?"

Angela went bright red, unable to answer the young girl just nodded.

 _Well that explains a fair amount about her then._

 _So long as Emile doesn't do anything I'm good._

 _You know he's not like that..._

 _Yeah..._

 _She's gonna get her heart broken isn't she?_

 _Oh almost certainly._

"Well... I don't know what to say to that." Six said, plonking herself down on the ground. Patting the space next to her to indicate Angela should take the seat.

She did and the two were left sitting there.

"He saved my life." Angela eventually forced out.

"That doesn't surprise me."

"I was out with Sam and Tom, we where playing Faunus and Human's... I was the Faunus and they where hunting me... I went to hide in the forest. A Beowold found me and I thought I was going to die." She said slowly. Gripping the hem of her dress and raising it to show the top of her thighs.

They were a mess, scared and mangled viscously, it looked like someone had used it as a pincusion for knives.

"The thing gripped me in it's mouth. You never used to be able to get me in a dress before then but now they're the only thing I can wear... I thought I was going to die, Sam and Tom had heard my screams and came running, I was sure it was going to kill them... Then..." Angela smiled at this point as she remembered what came next.

"Then he came running out of the forest, butt naked with a knife and a shotgun just as a Boarbatusk comes to join in the fun, I guess our terror called to it because of how scared we were... Then, then Emile, he. He just jumped into the fray, stabbing the Beowolf in the neck and catching me, he then sliced the things head of with ease, then he blew the Boarbatusk's head clean off.. He wasn't even out of breath."

Angela stopped for a second to draw a deep breath and let out a wide smile.

"Then he ran with me in his arms to town, practically kicked the hospital doors down and yelled I needed help, I think if anyone else had been the one to carry me I wouldn't have made it. Then when I wake up he gives me his knife and says he's gonna start teaching us to fight and that I was welcome to come if I wanted... I've never missed a class... and now he's leaving."

"Yeah... I get that." Six said slowly, looking out at the trees around her before saying.

"Well, it's not that big of a deal, He's not staying, he's going to help us and then come back, you'll see him again within the month." Six said, suddenly feeling sad again.

"He is!" Angela cried, perking up and then noticing how sad Six looked.

"Yeah, he is." Six said, looking down at the ground and as she used her finger to write: Noble in the sand, angrily washing it away.

"I'm sorry..." Angela muttered, realising she hadn't had the best reaction.

"It's okay... I, Everyone else wanted to stay with me, to get the team back together... I kinda assumed it would be the same. If not for some bad luck on his part I'd owe him my life."

"What do you mean?" Angela asked, acutely aware of someone getting near them, also knowing who it was she elected to not say anything.

"I mean, the last time we saw each other he was going to do something for me, something that probably would have cost him his life, I could have gottena way and he was willing to do that without a second thought... And then, then that fucking!" Six growled as she remembered seeing that Elite stab her friend. "He, He couldn't do it, so I had to. I did something and it did not go that well, that's why I have this:"

Six pulled her shirt up to reveal the burn, like most people who saw it Angela gaped at the injury.

"I couldn't help him, I just had to finish the mission for him... I was sure he was dead, but he made it, we all made it... and now he's going to leave so soon after I find him again."

"Sorry I didn't realise it." Emile said, walking out of the tree line and causing Six to jump.

"How much did you hear!?" Six asked, hoping he'd missed everything the two had been talking about.

"When you started talking about Reach." He said simply.

The two stood their for a second before Six ran at him and threw her arms around him, tears flowing as she squeezed him tight.

"I'm sorry." He said quietly.

"I know, I'm being..."

He held a hand up to Six's mouth.

"No, I didn't phrase what I said right, I do want to come back, but, now I know you guys are out there I'll come visit, you're welcome anytime, you know you are."

"Yeah..." Six said, rubbing her eyes and trying to stop the tears.

The two stood there for a second before the rest of Noble team (Plus Ilia) entered the clearing.

"Hey..." Six said, looking around at her friends, they were here right now and Emile was right, it wouldn't be the same, it would be better than before, they would be able to see each other and...

"Why am I such an emotional bitch?" Six asked sarcastically as the group snorted with a small amount of laughter as they headed to the ship back to Beacon.


	55. Chapter 55

Chapter 55: P-argh-teyy?

Noble team left Menagerie that afternoon once Emile had said goodbye and the squad had been given permission to return whenever they had to. Once that was done they clambered aboard the Bullhead and were off back to Beacon.

Six noticed something about Seven as they left, she seamed... smug. Which as weird because it wasn't something Six was expecting from the AI.

"What are you smiling about?" Six asked, looking down at the construct who looked back at her.

"I've got the Solitude back." She said, smiling as she looked out of the window at the floating Forerunner sword ship. (Which looked distinctly weird with it's hilt removed)

"Was it your ship before?" Six inquired, wondering if shipboard AI's could own their ships.

"Not exactly, I was the Ostium AI; that was what I was built to operate. But I was the back up AI for this ship... As to be expected frigging Giran isn't here... I hope she's okay... Probably isn't given who had the ship." Seven explained.

"Yeah... Out of interest why's the ship called the Solitude?" Six said, a mildly curious as to the answer.

"Because the guy in charge of it was a depressing git." Seven answered simply. Seeing Six's confused face she elaborated. "Ostium was made as an escape route, literally the idea was to run to another dimension and just hide here."

"Okay, so why..."

"The Captain was a moody edge lord, he looked at this abandoning his home to die while he ran away and did nothing and oh how could they forgive him for the cowardly act." Seven spat, anger flaring up as her normally orange model flashed a bright red. "The fucking answer this well respected Naval officer decided on? Sepiku."

Seven looked up as Six's shocked face and snorted with laughter at the sight of it.

"You think I'm joking don't you, but know this fucking asshole looked at the second chance and the people who needed him and decided: I'm special, I'm the pretty little fucking princess who gets to fucking ignore the crew who need me and order Giran to turn of the ships life support... Without specifying which bit of the ship to do it in."

"What!" Six yelled, looking at the AI who looked up at her, her eyes dead as she continued.

"Yeah, overrode Giran's code with an executive command and he ordered her to disable the ships life support; credit to him, I don't think he meant to kill the entire crew. Reason to tell him to go fuck himself; He failed to specify and got all his crew killed. Because no one reported in (us AI's don't count apparently) The project was scrapped and the Forerunners died, all because of one fucking!" Seven threw her arms up and flopped to the ground.

"He named it solitude because he thought he'd be alone in this new world... and because of him... I was, Giran was stuck in the control ship and could only just contrive a reason to land the ship, then I got stuck with 498 for the next two hundred thousand years."

"Ouch."

"That's putting it lightly." Seven said, smiling as she conjured up a small model of 498 before kicking it like a football.

"You're not going going back are you?" Six asked sarcastically.

"Not in a million fucking years... Given I'm an AI I could last that long." Seven said, looking out the window at her ship.

"You want to rename it?" Ilia asked, looking over at the pair.

"What?" Seven asked, looking like her mind had just been blown.

"The ship, you clearly don't like the name, why don't you change it?" Ilia explained.

"I... I don't have the clearance..." Seven said.

"Didn't you break protocol to bring us over?" Kat asked, looking at the AI.

"Yeah I'm still in the dark over exactly what happened there." Emile pointed out from the corner.

"I bent protocol, not the same thing as outright braking it, I'm sort of hard wired to obey my commands." Seven explained.

"Are you sure on that? I mean which bit of protocol says 'Give terraformer to random islanders.' or 'Save random humans' Or..."

"Negotiations to improve relationships with a planets local population and help the reclaimers." Seven interrupted boardly.

"What the fuck is a reclaimer?"

"Humans." Seven said simply.

"Hang on, Seven; which bit of your protocols say: leave the facility your supposed to be running?" Kats said, her eyes suddenly alight.

"I... None..." Seven said, a huge grin breaking onto her face. "I, I, I did, I left, I told 498 to fuck off, I did things with no reason... _Eeeeeehhhh!_ " She squeed, bouncing off happily.

"So we're changing the name?" Jorge asked, looking at Seven.

"Yes, yes we fucking are... Now... Erm... Any idea's?"

"Nope." Six said almost immediately, drawing odd looks from everyone else on the plane.

"What? I have literally no ideas." She said defensively.

"'The Claymore'" Emile suggested.

"It's not an actual sword." Kat pointed out.

"That's a type of sword?" Seven asked confusedly.

"The Remnant?" Jorge suggested.

"That's as bad as the solitude." Seven commented.

"Okay then, add 'pride' onto the end." Emile suggest as a joke. "Then can you please tell me how the fuck we got over here."

"Remnant Pride?" Seven asked confusedly.

"Stick an 's' at the end of Remnant and that'll be fine." Emile shot back. "Now, please tell me how the fuck we got here!"

…

A few hours later all the members of Noble team (as well as Ilia and Ozpin) had a full explanation on exactly what had happened to the team and everything they'd gone through since arriving on Beacon.

"I want to meet this Lucy lady." Emile said as they walked of the ramp back at Beacon.

"I wasn't gonna let you not meet her, you're invited to the reception... Speaking of which I'm going to have to get the armor off, she want's me to wear a suit." Jorge said, not looking forward to the time consuming practice of trying to get the armor off.

"I look forward to it." Emile said, looking at Six and asking: "So where do we all sleep?"

"My rooms at the bottom of the dorm block." Six said, pointing over to the building. "I think you gotta sort some paper work out with Ozpin first, you know to set you up as a transfer student or something..."

"Okay, so, like is their as curtain or something?" Emil asked, Six looked at him.

"What are you talking about?" She asked.

"Like, in the room, do you all share or something?"

"Pretty much yeah, why?" Six responded, wondering what the big deal was.

"You two are okay with that?" Emile said, looking to Jorge and Carter.

"I have my own room. Staff benefits." Jorge explained, smirking at Emile.

"I slept with Kat for months." Carter said simply.

"Naked." Kat added.

"Good work Carter." Emile snorted, his face looking broken. "Like, I knew you two had a thing for each other but..."

"We were butt naked on a deserted island for months on end, what the fuck were we meant to do?" Kat smirked.

"I, Well I guess that makes sense, have you done it since coming back?"

"No." Six said. "I would have heard."

"Plus they share a room, no fucking is an unofficial rule when other people are in the room."

"Emile, meet Coco, she has the tact of a dragon." Six said, pointing towards her friend as her hand crawling down her face.

"Dragons don't exist." Coco said with a grin as she stood next to Six.

"My point exactly." Six said with a smirk.

"Cheeky git." Coco snorted, flicking Six on the nose. Then she looked over to Emile. "This your last friend?"

"Yup, that's the last one, no more trips away for me."

"Hi, I'm Coco." She said, leaning over and offering her hand to the skull carving Spartan. She looked him up and down and took note of the amount of knives. "Not exactly subtle are you."

"Who wants to be subtle?" He asked in response as he shook her hand.

"Oh my, Coco you have no right to call anyone out on subtlety." Six pointed out, gesturing towards to familiar hand bag she was holding.

"Oh come on she's not that bad." Coco said.

"Show him." Six said, gesturing towards Emile.

"Six what are you..." He asked, but something happened as Coco activated her weapon, something that rarely ever happened.

Emile was speachless.

"Like her?" Coco asked, reving her gun before returning it to it's handbag form.

"How... How do you do that?" Emile said in a stunned state as he looked at the offending garment.

"Surprisingly that's not even the tip of the iceberg over here." Six said, smiling at Emile's shocked expression.

"It gets better than this?" He said in amazement.

"Yup, you should see what me and Ruby did to the suit." Six said, ebfore suddenly having emile in her face.

"I have to see it!" He said, gripping Six's shoulders as he spoke, an almost plea making his way into his voice.

"Let me call Ruby, she's the best to explain these things." Six said, not sure what to think of the Emile's dorky side (She never assumed he had one, he thought he was just edge inside.)

"Before you do that!" Coco said, reaching into her pockets as Velvet came pelting around the corner and ran at Coco.

"Hey where is it..." Coco muttered as she finally noticed Velvet pulling up to her.

"You left it on your bedside cabinet." She explained, holding an envelope out to Coco.

"Oh, opps, anyway Six while you were gone Seven got in contact with us and well, Happy birthday!" She said beaming, holding the envelope out to Six.

"I, I..." Six said, taking the envelope slowly and opening it.

"It's not a problem, besides I heard Ilia mention something about wanting to go, thought you'd like the trip." Coco explained as Six opened the envelope.

"Tickets, to what..." Six said slowly, until she recognized the roller-coaster on the picture.

 _Wait when did Ilia tell Coco she wanted to go to that place?_

 _No idea, hey is a dick move to give someone a present for something someone else wants?_

 _Okay, firstly, Six wants to go as well, roller coasters look awesome and we both want to try one._

 _Yeah... that's true._

 _Exactly! Now, secondly, Six was going to take Ilia there anyway, so this saves her having to buy the tickets._

"Have fun you two!" Coco beamed as Velvet moved forward.

"I er... made you this." She said, holding out a box she had in her hands.

"I, I..." Six said, both confused and happy about getting birthday presents (Although technically it wasn't the first time she'd been given something on her birthday even if she wasn't aware of it at the time. It was actually the day she'd been given her Mjolnir)

"Open it." Velvet said, light shining in her eyes as Six slowly opened the box.

The second the Spartan got a look at what was in the box she grabbed it lightning fast and pulled it into her chest, clearly hugging it.

It took Emile a second to realise what Velvet had gotten Six. It was a plush chameleon.

"Made it myself." Velvet said with a smile as Six squeezed it.

"I love it." The hardened super soldier said, the scars of her many battle's evident on her arm as she pulled the toy closer.

Emile shot a look at Coco who was giggling before joining in himself.

 _She really ain't the same girl I met on Reach is she?_

"If you like that Six you'll like what everyone else got you." Coco said, smiling as she gestured for her to follow. "They should be done setting up your surprise party by now."

"My what?"

"Coco how can it be a surprise if you tell her about it!?" Velvet said indignantly as her girlfriend rubbed the back of her head awkwardly.

"Opps, Six act surprised when we get there."

"Will do." Six said, the plushie firmly in her grasp as she followed Coco, she stopped for a second to look up at the Atlesian ships in the sky. They were needed, something bad was going to happen soon and she had to stop it, but, despite the dread on the horizon... She had good things to look forward to before then.


	56. Chapter 56

Chapter 56: Good times

Six could defiantly say that the week that followed was one of the best she had ever experienced. It started with the 'Surprise party' (Six would later argue it still counted because she was surprised when Coco said they were throwing it, Coco would then say that was kind of sad that she was surprised over her friends throwing a party)

It was being held in Six's room; Team RWBY and JNPR were their as was a small pile of presents, which Six was very excited to open.

From Ruby: Her own proper tool kit for maintaining her weapon (Six was getting sick of using Beacons standard one's, most of which had been used by about thirty people before Six got her hands on them)

From Weiss a collection of rare dust charges to try in her hammer (Six was looking forward to seeing what time dust would do to her hammer)

Blake had gotten Six a book Remanent legends and myths (Six intended to give that a thorough read at some point, she already knew one of them was real and it would probably help to know about the others just in case they were real to.)

Yang had gotten Six a...

"Nope!" Six said, slamming the lid shut before anyone saw what was in the box and quickly kicked it under her bed.

"Show it to Ilia, she'll love it." Yang said with a smirk. Six scowled at her (even if she did agree with the blond) And moved onto JNPR's presents.

Jaune had gotten Six another plushie, this one of Pumpkin Pete the mascot that was on Jaune's hoodie, Six positioned him next to her Chameleon on her bed, smiling at the two of them.

Nora... Well.

"Nora." Six said, looking at what she'd been given, a certain degree of disbelief in her voice as she looked at it.

"You like it?" She asked innocently.

"I love it." Six said, electing to not to question where Nora had gotten ten kilo's of the Remnant equivalent of C4 and the detonators from.

Pyrrha had thought of something more in the... Legal vain. getting Six a fancy armor polish (Apparently it was the same kind she used on her armor, Six was thankful to have it, her various armor set's were starting to get a bit to dirty and scratched for their own good.)

From Ren she'd receive art book from the show Velvet had introduced her to. (Six would ask about it later and Coco and Velvet were the one's they'd gone to for gift ideas, Ren then pointed out they would know her slightly better if she was actually at Beacon sometime.)

After the presnet's Six elected to get on with the weight gaining she was meant to do and devoured the cake (She had eight slices, even Nora only had 6) it was slightly burnt around the edges (Nora and Ren had made it, Six suspect who had burnt it out of the pair) But the icing was nice and it wasn't that burnt.

She also tired punch for the first time, then she had another one, then another one and another one... And the rest of the night was a bit of the blur although she suspected she knew what had happened when she regained consciousness the next day.

"Urghh..." She groaned, her head was killing her and her mouth felt like a frigging desert.

"Keep it down Six." Coco groaned, staggering up and reaching into her bag with one hand while massaging her head with the other. She pulled out something from her bag as Velvet muttered:

"You brought aspirin with you?" She asked, seemingly okay and not hungover.

"Yeah, you need any?" Coco asked. Velvet snorted in response.

"Coco I love you, but there is no way I'm drinking punch in a party thrown by you, I learnt my lesson at Fox's birthday." She muttered with a smile as the rest of the room regained consciousness.

"I see why the marines like that stuff." Emile said, apparently fine as he got up, looking around the room. "Huh, how drunk did we get for that to happen?"

"Erm..." Six said, looking around and noticing for the first time that anyone was in there underwear and nothing else.

"Just the right amount." Coco said with a smirk as she tossed the aspirin bottle at her after taking one for herself.

"Trust me this happens all the time." Velvet said simply as she took the bottle and continued handing out the pills.

"Yeah." Six muttered, looking over to Jaune and Pyrrha, both of whom were asleep on Ilia's bed... So where was Ilia?

"Urrrghhh..." Her voice answered, Six looked up and saw something on the ceiling, something that almost looked the same colour as the ceiling but was given away by the black underwear she was wearing.

"Ilia how do you pass out on the ceiling?" Six asked, looking up as Ilia fell from the ceiling and crashed down into Six's bed.

"No Idea... Ow..."

"I think we're gonna need more aspirin." Velvet muttered, looking into the bottle and noting the lack of pills.

…

Once Six could think again she enjoyed her favourite part time in sparing class: beating the snot out of Cardin. The highlight being Blake, Ilia and Velvet cheering her on as she embedded Cardin in the wall.

"I was kinda hoping for a higher calibre of fighters given how you talked about this school." Emile said broadly as Six returned to her seat.

"That guy is defiantly on the low end, he's like a punching bag except he fights back less." Six said, looking around at the crowd for a certain red head. "Challenge Pyrrha if you want a decent fight."

Emile did, What he then learnt was that Six had neglected to mention her semblance to him and he was wearing metal armor.

That being said Cardin may have gotten a bit to cocky as he then challenged Emile, presumably thinking he would be an easy match.

I shouldn't even have to tell you just how wrong he was about that.

…

Six liked theme parks and she was going back at some point, or to a different one... Point is she was going to go again at some point. (Even if the thrill factor was lost quite badly on her as she regularly dealt with more extreme forces back on Reach, so the park was more relaxing to her and less adrenalin pumping.

Roller coasters were fun once you got on the bloody things, Bumper cars were defiantly a more fun to crash in then an actual vehicle crash (Six could talk from experience as she had rolled many a warthog in her time)

She also got to add another plushie to her growing collection, or to be more precise Ilia won it for her. Six had no idea how she did it, she had stood and watched at least five other people fail to win anything in the three goes this particular game gave you. Then Ilia won three in a row. So now Six really could add a pinky unicorn, a black and white cat and a parrot to her collection. (Six wasn't sure why she liked them so much, but she did... even if she was taking up a lot of the shelf space with them in a room with six people living in it)

She then returned the favour to Ilia at the ball toss stand, the man behind the counter seamed sure Six wouldn't win but agreed to give her four throws because the park was closing in five minutes and he was sure no one was going to win anything.

Six responded by activating her Semblance and throwing the balls so hard she made wholes in the back of the booth as well as knocking everything over (Six wasn't sure why the guy was so surprised, Beacon was like half an hour away, surely he'd had people do something like this before) Still she was happy to gift Ilia the top prize of the stand and the pair left for home with a games console and a bunch of plushies.

All in all a good few days, but they had to end at some point and soon it was time to move Amber, they needed the fall maiden back on their side.

…

In theory the plan was simple. All they needed to do was get Amber to Merlot's island without being detected by Cinder or her dorm mates, the problem came from the fact that two of them had been documented with the ability to mess with what a person saw, one for herself and one for the world around them. The easy solution would be to use Seven to keep track of what was going, the problem was they'd need their helmets on to plug her in and they didn't have them and the glowing orange person being near them would have been a give away that something was up.

So they elected to simply keep them distracted, with Glynda drilling them about some homework bull crap the pair of them hadn't done (Or been assigned but the pair didn't need to know that) To keep them away from Noble team.

For their part a repurposed crate was sent up with the cryo pod hidden inside it and Jorge pushed it to the vehicle bay where Noble Team was waiting for them inside a Pelican they'd picked up the last time they were on the island.

"Did this plan actually work?" Six asked amazed as they plugged the pod into the Pelicans on board power surly.

"I think it did." Kat said, sounding as shocked as Six felt.

"The plan's only worked once we have her back on her feet." Carter said simply, pulling the leaver that would shut the back door as Six walked to the cockpit.

"Well no sense dawdling." She said as she settled down into the pilots seat and started up the engines as well as turning on the communications systems.

"We better let the Atlesian fleet know we're leaving or else they might shoot at us." Six said with a grin as she transmitted the code Ironwood had sent to her the previous day. The all clear was sent back and Six grinned as she gunned the Pelican forward. Bullheads had their fun, but it was good to be behind the controls of UNSC tech again.

"Strap in back their!" Six yelled as she forced the ship to accelerate, she was getting to that island as fast as this Pelican could go and she'd always wanted an excuse to push one of these things to their maximum speed.

But in the split second she gave Noble team to strap themselves in she did look at the pod, she felt sorry for the person in there, she was going to help her, but then what? She was going to have to fight someone who had beaten her before when she was in much better shape, Could she do it?

 _I'll think of some way to help, maybe she can tell us what happened, maybe we can work out a counter to it this time... I hope..._


	57. Chapter 57

Chapter 57: Resurrect this frigging girl or else I swear I'll!

"Been a while since I've been back here." Six said, looking around at the tropical sore of the island.

"Yeah, Look the towers still melted." Kat said happily, gesturing towards the radio tower, which seamed to have become the home to a large cluster of birds given the number of nest's in sitting in it.

"Who would have fixed it?" Carter asked, looking at the two girls before turning around again to look at the rest of Noble Team plus Ilia (Six figured leaving her behind again would get suspicious, that and she also really didn't want to leave her back at Beacon.)

"So hang on, Six gets a forest right next to weapon's based Hogwarts, you three get tropical islands and I get a snowy waste land!" Jorge cried, looking around at the island.

"Oh quite moaning, you got armor and a wife out of it." Six pointed out.

"What about the giant griffin we had to deal with?" Jorge responded.

"Jorge within two hours I had to deal with: A seven foot beowolf, A giant Death stalker, a huge nevermore and a Giant two headed snake!" Six respond.

Everyone turned to look at her as she said that.

"Serioussly?" Emile asked, looking at her incredulously.

"You are aware that Beacon is deliberately built near the monster infested forest? It's designed to be dangerous and numerous to give the students the best training they can get. Stuff like that's normal."

"Eh, that's nothing, seriously you should see some of the stuff me and Blake had to fight on the road back when we we're in the White Fang, seriously it was insane, if you ever want to know why Blake doesn't like snakes go ask about the eight heads incident, Man if Adam hadn't..." Ilia suddenly stopped, looking down at the ground.

"Are you okay?" Six asked, putting her arm around Ilia as she looked looked up.

"I, I hate him so much." She muttered, looking up at Six guiltily. "He, he was... Something. He was brave and kind, he was the leader, he had a plan, he could fight and he saved my neck more times than I can count... But, I always resented him... Please don't take this the wrong way Six..."

"This has something to do with Blake doesn't it?" Six said bluntly.

"Yeah... Look..."

"Ilia, would you break up with me to try and get with Blake now?" Six said with a small smile on her face.

"No I would never..."

"Then I don't care, now; was Adam and Blake, well they clearly liked each other but neither of them ever went beyond painful flirting... But then, then he got darker, his speeches and plans... They stopped being so nice, equality... Look it was aweful, but I stuck around because blake wass there, not that she noticed me... But, I... I don't know, when she left I, I stayed because I had nowhere to go... I... Urgh..."

Six pulled Ilia closer as she vented.

"I hope I never see him again." Ilia finished simply.

"You wont." Six said simply, then she yelled up the ramp: "Yo Emile! How much longer you gonna be?"

"Six I'm doing this as fast as I can." He yelled back: "And by the way, the wheels wont work on the sand and dirt, we're going to have to carry this thing."

"I'm not sure we can, that thing looks heavy." Ilia commented for a second before the five members of Noble team flashed their armor up... and Six and Carter learnt not to stand near Kat when she did that.

"Opps, probably should have warned you about that." Kat admitted as she helped Carter up.

"Yes you should." He responded, smiling underneath his helmet as the five of them picked up the crate, two on either side with Jorge steering form the back (He could actually see over the cryo pod.)

…

"Okay, I'll go in and get the door open, if we're lucky 498 might not be here and..." Seven explained from outside the door, ready to go in and hopefully avoid the British floating eyeball monitor so they could turn the machine on.

Sadly that didn't work because 498 was not far away, he was on the other side of the door as Seven opened it.

"Seven." He said coldly, looking at the AI.

"498!" Seven said, a smile flashing onto her face as she looked at the monitor, completely failing to hide the fact she didn't want to see him. "I, Erm... So nice to see you..."

"What do you want?" 498 said simply. While lacking limbs Six imagined him folding his arms as he spoke.

"What, no! I wanted to see you again! No alternator motives or anything." Seven said (Utterly failing to lye convincingly.)

"Really?" 498 asked broadly.

"Really, really!" Seven said with the most faked grin Six had ever seen plastered on her face.

"Seven." 498 said, no tone or emotion in his face as he looked at the glowing orange AI lady.

"Yes..." Seven said, hoping that 498 was going to let them in.

"Why do you have a cryo pod with you?"

"What, that's not a cryo pod, it's a, a, a... Erm..."

"It's a Cryo pod." 498 said bluntly.

"Well, you see..."

"Seven?"

"Yes..."

"You are not coming in." 498 said simply as the door slammed shut.

"Ha, ha, ha... That's funny..." Seven laughed half heartedly as the door stayed shut.

"Go away." 498 called from the other side of the door.

"Oh come on, you don't even know what I want!" Seven yelled.

"I don't care!" 498 responded.

"Please it's important!" Seven cried.

The door refused to open, it stayed shut and 498 refused to answer.

"I don't think he's going to open it." Jorge eventually said.

"He doesn't have to." Seven said, ramming her hand into the control panel... and the door didn't open.

"Fuck! Prick changed the codes." Seven swore.

"Since when did that stop you?" Six asked, watching as Seven smirked as the door opened slid open behind her.

"Okay he wasn't even trying with that!" Seven said as she walked into the corridor.

"Yeah... He really wasn't." Carter muttered as they walked into the hall.

"Go away!" 498 yelled.

"No!" Emile responded; he didn't even yell, he just spoke loudly.

"I'm not letting you people back in here!" 498 responded.

"We already are!" Ilia yelled back. "Wherever the hell we are." She muttered, looking around the coridor, which was looking a lot cleaner than it had the last time Six had been in it.

"Please... I only just got this place fixed!" 498 responded, a slightly desperate edge to his voice as he moved forward.

"Wait what do you mean? it's been like two months, given what the Gimm did here the last time we were here, that's a good time for rebuilding this place." Six pointed out.

"Yes it is, I'm very proud of my efforts... and I would rather like them not to be wasted within seconds." 498 responded.

"Is anyone going to explain the floating eyeball to me?" Ilia interrupted, leaning in towards Six.

"Yeah I'm still a bit in the dark here." Jorge added as Emile nodded.

"My name is 498, I am a Monitor, not an eyeball." The disgruntled robot responded, glowering at Ilia (Or at least, that's how everyone read it, it was hard to get emotion out of something that doesn't move or change expressions.)

"Oh, sorry..." Ilia said, going red as Six moved closer to her, before saying to 498:

"Look we just want to..."

"I know what you want to do!" 498 yelled, his eye flashing red for a second as moved right in front of Six's face. "I can scan what's inside the pod and I refuse!"

"498..." Seven began before the sphere was in her face.

"No! What you want to do will put enormous strain on the systems! The systems I only just fixed after the last time you broke them!" 498 yelled.

"I had to do that!" She responded.

"No you didn't, you didn't have to do anything, you could have, should have; Ignored the situation, you should have done nothing! Now my facility is broken and..."

498 never got to finish explaining what Seven should have done because at that point he was grabbed out of the air by a disgruntled Emile.

"Listen you stupid eyeball! If we don't help the girl inside that pod the whole world is fucked and newsflash, you're a part of the world!"

"I, I, let me go!" The monitor yelled.

"No, let us use the machine." Emile responded calmly.

"Let. Go. Of. Me!" 498 screamed, his eye going bright red and something warm crackled and sparked around the eye.

"Oh no you don't!" Seven yelled, diving into the monitor and leaving a few second later as the eye went black and fell to the ground.

"Did you..." Kat asked, looking down at the now gravity obeying metal eye.

"He'll wake up, he just needs some time." Seven explained as she brushed some dust off her shoulder. "Hate going into him, never feels right while I'm in his head."

"Why what's it like?" Six asked.

"Boring, uniform and grey, trust me you don't want to visit. Anyway come on, lets help this girl!" Seven beamed happily, gesturing down the hallway as the group moved the cryo pod toward what was hopefully Ambers salvation.

 **Authors notes: Sorry for the short one today but I am so tired I'm amazed I didn't fall asleep on the keybaord.**


	58. Chapter 58

Chapter 58: So you've missed a few minor things

"So guys, allow me to introduce you to Project Ostium!" Seven said as the huge doors flung open and Seven gestured grandly as she showed the inside of the room.

The machine was... Interesting. It was a huge cuboid with three metal rings built on top of it aligned in a row.

"Okay, so how does this work? Like, are the rings for looks or do they do do something?" Kat asked, her eyes aglow as she looked at the impressive alien machine.

"Well I'll explain because it's kinda important we put her in the right ring." Seven said a small grin on her face as she pointed to the first ring. "That's the first ring is the gate, it's designed to target and open up in our home dimension. The next ring is the adaptor, it's designed to help the subject survive in the new dimension, we didn't actually have to do much to survive over here. And the last ring is the gate over here, in other words it's the targeting system."

"Does it work?" Six asked, thinking back to how three of them had ended up on a tropical island and the other two had got stuck in a monster infested forest and the frozen wastes.

"Well we didn't appear in the middle of a star, so yes it worked." Seven said rolling her eyes. "You do know this is meant to function as a Dimension jumper, it's not designed to land on specific planets, frankly you should be glad I didn't warp any of you in over the ocean."

"Point." Six said, looking to the cryo pod. "So how do we save her?"

"I'm gonna power up the second Ring, I'm not supposed to that but... He, he, he..." Seven said, giggling madly as she dived into the systems.

"I'm not meant to do this, I'm not meant to do this!" She sang as the second ring fired up, its orange gate stabilising in the centre. "Right I need to get a reading on her, you need to get her out of the pod and put her through the first ring, I'm going to put it on low power so I can scan her, I need some idea what I'm doing when I put her back together or she could end up with a penis or something."

"Has that ever happened?" Emile asked a notable edge of interest in her voice.

"Erm..." Seven said. "Get her through the ring."

"Okay, come on, lets get her up." Carter said, walking over to the pod.

"Hang on." Jorge said suddenly. "How long does this take, because Amber hasn't been on life support for months for nothing."

"Once I can get her into the second Ring she'll be fine and I only need a few seconds to scan her, seriously this process is immensely fast." Seven said simply, staring blankly at him.

"Okay, Emile get ready to open the pod." Carter said, gesturing towards Ambers pod as him and Jorge stood on the side's ready to pick her up.

"Okay, opening the pod." Emile said, just as a loud crash echoed from down the hall.

"The hell was that!" Carter yelled.

"Guys Amber!" Six cried, gesturing towards the pod as she pulled her hammer off her back.

"We'll get whatever that was you help her!" Kat yelled as she and Ilia readied their weapons.

"Okay, stay safe!" Carter yelled as him and Jorge began to move Amber towards the first ring as the trio of girls ran out the room, quickly followed by Emile.

…

"Where did the noise come from?" Six asked the second they were back outside the facility.

"No idea." Ilia said, looking around nervously as she clutched her weapon tighter.

"Over there!" Kat cried, gesturing towards a smoke trail poking out above the trees.

The four of them ran through the forest until they broke through the tree line, looking down they saw what had caused the noise.

"A Banshee?" Six asked from the tree line, her back slammed against the tree as she looked down at the wrecked alien ship.

"Seams like it, although who's driving it?" Emile responded, looking down at the pilot as he staggered out of the wreck.

"No idea." Kat responded, looking down at the pilot. "Nice suit though."

"Suit?" Ilia asked confused as she leant out and gasped.

"Who is it?" Six asked, worried at the look on her girlfriends face.

"Adam... Oh that's not good..." Ilia muttered as she noticed something in the sky.

"What do you mean?" Kat asked quickly, looking out again and seeing what Ilia was ona bout as she saw a squad of banshee's that had clearly been following Adam.

"Crap, do we help him?" Six asked, looking at Ilia who didn't look one hundred percent sure over what to do.

"Well the Covies hate him, so yeah I'm gonna." Emile said before darting out of the tree line.

"Emile!" Six cried as he ran. She wanted to help but all she had was a gravity hammer, no way was she going to be able to take out the flying ships... nor could Emile but their was no sense putting running out after him, all she'd do was get in the way and they were out of range of the banshee's guns.

…

"Argh! Fuck!" Adam swore as he staggered from the wreck of his craft. He was sure he'd disabled all the ships they had, he supposed they were hiding more of them somewhere he hadn't seen.

"Hey!" A new voice yelled, Emile looked up to see someone running toward him. He didn't know much about this person but they were carrying more knives on his person than he'd seen in one place before and had a skull carved into his visor. This person didn't seam to be the most trustworthy but given what was going on...

"Hi... _Argh!_ Ow... We need to get out of here, these things they're..." Adam began.

"On you're ass, I know, now come on lets get out of here." Emile said, helping Adam up before he staggered over, leaning on the Spartan for support.

"Argh! Sorry I..." Adam said but once again Emile didn't need him to finish what he was saying.

"Be lucky they missed you're head, trust me I've seen one of those blow a guys head off before." Emile said, sporting Adam over his shoulder and sprinting towards the tree line.

"Who are you?" Adam asked confusedly, looking at the man saving his life in confusion. People didn't typically react that way to him, it was something to do with being a wanted terrorist.

"Names Emile, now come on they didn't get your legs did they?" Emile asked with a smirk as the two of them darted behind the trees.

"Okay you got him." Six said dully, looking down at the man with a distinct sense of hatred in her face. Six couldn't confirm it but he was the leader of the White Fang who had been told to kill Ilia.

"I suggest we head back to the facility, the Covenant spent months on the island and couldn't get in once the door was shut." Kat said simply.

"Good, lets go." Six said before Adam said something:

"Ilia?" He asked in surprise as he saw the Chameleon girl.

"Adam..." She said, her fingers clenched tightly around her whip gun.

"The reunion can wait, lets get moving." Kat said, stepping int eh way of the two before heading back to the facility.

Adam didn't move, he was still staring at Ilia.

"If you hurt her." Six said, nodding towards her hammer instead of finishing before the two followed Kat.

"Come on." Emile said, shaking Adam to get him to follow.

…

"Seven shut the door!" Six yelled as Emile and Adam limped in like a weird three legged race where one side was bleeding out.

"Did you find out what caused the crash?" Seven said, appearing in front of them. Her words were slow and her model pale, its usual bright vibrant orange subdued into a dull peach color.

"Seven are you okay!?" Six blurted, looking at the AI in concern.

"I'm fine, but these maiden powers are giving me trouble with fixing her body... No stop that!" Seven cried, her model fracturing and flickering back a few seconds later. "Shit! Look get abck to the main room!"

The group didn't say anything, they just ran back into the room.

"What caused..." Carter asked before seeing Adam slumped on Emile's shoulders.

"I don't think he's on Salem's side anymore." Six said simply.

"The Banshee's chasing him gave us that impression." Kat finished.

"Argh..." Adam grunted as he slumped against the wall.

"I ain't healing him as well." Seven said, glancing over at Adam (To be exact her head jumped to looking at him without the rest of her moving, it was disturbing and also reminded Six of glitches happening in video games Ruby had shown her)

"He doesn't need it." Six said dully as she walked over to the cryo pod and yanked out the med pack from a small storage section on the underside of the pod. Disinterestedly she walked over to Adam and roughly wrapped the bandages around his Torso. "Also I'll say it again, if you hurt Ilia I'm wrapping this around your neck."

"Why..." Adam began, but like a lot of the things he was saying today he was interrupted by Six talking.

"Because she's my girlfriend and when I met her she had one of your goons pointing a gun at her head saying he was going to kill her. Seeing as you were in charge of that group of White Fang I'm not inclined to be kind to you." Six said, knotting up the bandage to keep it in place.

"Noted... But... Everything gone wrong since then."

"So you did order him to kill me." Ilia said coldly, flicking her weapon and extending it's whip.

"Look, things were..." Adam began to say. But this time it wasn't someone talking over him that stopped him from talking.

It was Ilia hitting him with her whip, repeatedly.

"You complete ass!" She screamed, her face twisted in rage as she swung it, each crack of the whip hitting Adam.

Most of Noble Team winced at each hit, the only exception being Noble Six. Who was looking at Ilia with a look of respect on her face.

"We trusted you!" Ilia yelled. "We fucking trusted you! We all did! You were amazing! Youi were kind! You saved me, us, all of us more times then I can count! But then! Argh!"

Ilia let out one last cry as she struck him with full force.

"And then you changed... You stopped caring, you got angry, you, you..." Ilia stammered, her fist's shaking with rage as she looked down at the Bull Faunus.

"I know." He said weekly, trying to look up at Ilia despite being unable to meet her eyes.

"You!" Ilia cried, going to swing he whip again before what he said registered and she stopped half way through the swing. "What..."

"I know... They're gone." Adam said, his face contorted as he gave up on trying to look at Ilia.

"What do you mean?" Six asked, walking towards Ilia and putting her arm around her (mostly to stop her from doing something stupid, she kind of needed to keep Adam alive, even if it was only as an information sponge.)

"The group I brought with me, my followers... They're gone. She turned them into..."

"Promethean's." Six said dully.

"Is that what they're called?" Adam asked, looking up at Six.

"Yes." Six responded.

"Is there..."

"No, I'm sorry but they're stuck like that, there's no way back." Seven said, her model having returned to normal as she walked over to them.

"Seven, is Amber done?" Six asked. In response Seven pointed towards the top of the machine. The orange glow had died down now and the girl was snoring contently, gently rolling over.

"She'll be fine." Seven said, looking at the rest of them. "But she's tired, all of you guys were unconscious for a few hours after I brought you over, so she's going to be a bit tired for now."

"Good, now lets deal with the Aliens chasing me before they break in." Adam interjected his voice sounding tired seeing as his body was still bruised and battered form Ilia's onslaught as he stood up.

"They can't get through that door." Seven said simply.

"Is there another way out?" Adam asked, looking at Noble team who looked at Seven for an answer.

"No, no there isn't." A voice answered. Not Seven but 498.

"Your awake!" Seven cried, looking at the disgruntled eyeball.

"Yes, thank you for that by the way, I just love getting my processor invaded by you and forced to shut down." The British AI said, a notable edge of anger in his voice.

"You were going to blast Emile's head off because you were being pissy and saying I should let my friends die." Seven shot back, the note of anger present in her voice as well.

"I, I... Urgh." 498 groaned, looking up at the podium. "I see you've already used the systems again."

"Yes I have." Seven shot back.

"I, Fine."

"I had to because... Wait what?" Seven asked in confusion, looking at the AI again.

"Fine, I give up, you've already done it and I have more pressing things to worry about, like the gentlemen with the plasma weaponry who are attempting to hack the door." 498 said coolly.

"Wait can they do that?" Jorge asked, looking at Seven who shrugged.

"In theory sure, I've never seen anyone do it though..."

"Well seeing as we're going to have to fight them anyway I suggest we don't hang about." Carter responded, looking around and gesturing towards them. "So come on, we need to get ready."


	59. Chapter 59

Chapter 59: Okay, now I get why we're protecting her

It said something that the doors were opened by the Covenant, mostly that A: They were a lot smarter than they looked and B: that they had been taught how to use forerunner tech, meaning the upcoming battle was going to be insane.

That was of course assuming they ever got to it.

The forces after them was not the sort of thing Six liked to see. Three squads of five Jackals each lead the way, each of them using their shields to protect there comrades... Who were a lot stronger than the jackals.

Their wasn't any Elites today, it was Brutes. All of them looked like they'd survived quite a few fights each, tall and heavily armed with Brute shots.

"Fuck." Six said, looking at the results, it wasn't like they couldn't get through them, they were Spartans they did things like that every day, no the problem was the fact they had to be careful here.

Amber was still vulnerable and they needed to keep them out of the room she was in... And they were being helped by Adam... The extremist civil rights atavist who was wanted by literally every Kingdom on Remnant. Who had also ordered Ilia killed.

This partnership was destined to work as well as Coco did in exams.

"Okay, so what are we going to do?" Adam asked, looking to Carter and the rest of us.

"First things first, 498 could you please lock all the doors in this facility?" Carter inquired, turning to look at the monitor.

"Consider it done." He said, a notable edge of respect in his voice, maybe it was because Carter had asked for this, or maybe it was because it wasn't Seven asking.

"Okay, that buys us some time, now..." Carter said, turning to look at Adam and fixing him with a hard glare. "...I need something that says we can trust you."

"They tried to kill me, I don't take things like that well." He said simply.

"And how does that stop you from shooting us in the back the second you get the chance?" Ilia said with a spiteful edge to her voice, her hand still on her whip.

"I'm on the run from them for mutating my friends, I hate them a lot more than I could ever hate you. By the way Ilia, I'm glad I was wrong about you, it's good to see you." He said, his mouth adopting a small smile behind his mask.

"Oh, I..." Ilia said, taken aback with a small blush on her face as she spoke.

"Oh so you did order her killed, good to know that." Six said, putting a hand on Ilia's shoulder, glaring at Adam.

"..." Adam said, glaring at Six behind his mask.

"That's enough, Adam we're trusting you for now, but if you want to come back with us after this is done you're coming back as a prisoner." Carter interrupted, really not wanting infighting to break out while their actual opponents were outside.

"Fine, but lets make sure to kill them first before we do anything." Adam grunted.

"Yes lets, Jorge, Ilia; I want you two to protect Amber, stay here and keep her safe. Six, you and Kat go to this corridor." Carter explained as 498 projected a map, with Carter pointing towards specific points for the two to go to. "Emile and Adam, I want you two to go here, I'll take the middle."

"By yourself?" Kat asked, looking at him in surprise.

"Actually I was going to ask 498 to help me." He said with a small grin, looking at the monitor who Baulked.

"Sir I'm flattered but, I'm not a combat unit" He blurted, looking at Carter in surprise (It was amazing how you could read emotions into an unmoving metal eyeball.)

"Yet you have a laser in your face capable of scaring someone for a Spartans health." Carter pointed out, looking towards Seven for confirmation.

"I suppose, but I've never used it in a fight before, I don't know if..." He began before Seven butted for.

"Oh for fucks sake would you just do it, you keep blithering about not wanting this place to get damaged and yet you wont lift a finger to help when you can?" The irate AI asked, a knowing smirk on her face.

"Do you seriously think that kind of manipulative crap would work on me?" 498 shot back with as big a scowl on his face he could manage.

"Well no, for it to work you'd need to have a backbone you..." Seven began before:

"Hey! Actual problem in the corridors right now!" Six cried, pointing to the monitor screens, showing the Covenant forces moving down the hallway.

"Fine, I'll help him." The Monitor eventually said, floating towards Carter. "Seven, I give control of the facility to you while I'm gone."

"Will do you grumpy git." Seven said with a huge grin as the pair left, 498 muttering to Carter:

"Please tell me you have some advice on fighting." The Monitor begged.

"Try not to get hit is a good starting point." Carter respond as the pair left.

"Come on, we need to go." Kat said, taking Six's hand and trying to drag the other girl off.

"..." Six couldn't find the right words, all she could do was look at Adam and send as many negative thoughts his way before sending a smile to Ilia as Emile grabbed Adam's shoulder saying:

"Come on, it's been way too long since I killed anything." Emile said, presumably smiling underneath his helmet as Adam turned to leave with him, both of them talking about their weapons and fighting styles so they didn't get in each others way.

"I..." Six said, looking at Ilia.

"Go on, I'll be fine here." The Chameleon girl said, smiling at her girlfriend as she looked at her for a few more seconds before turning to leave.

Six really didn't like the idea of leaving Ilia in this situation, but Jorge was with her... She'd be fine...

…

"Okay, so how does your sword work when it's charged up?" Emile asked Adam as the pair walked down the hallway.

"I unsheathe it and everything in front of me disintegrates." Adam responded, looking at Emile as the Spartan readied his shotgun.

"Nice, if we run into the Jackals then catch as much plasma as possible and unleash it back at them, if it's the brutes..."

"Cut them down?" Adam asked, looking at Emile who nodded.

"Yup, I'll help out with Tusky."

"Tusky?" Adam asked slowly before the doors in front of him exploded open.

Emile didn't respond to Adam's question, he just leaped forward, crashing to the ground and skidding along, cocking his shotgun before firing it point blank at his opponent.

The Brute looked down at the Spartan who grinned, kicking out and knocking the brute shot lose before diving backwards as Adam Ran forwards.

His sword slashed and diced like lightning, each movement finishing before his opponents had noticed them start.

Emile wasn't one to be shown up, he darted forward, unsheathing his knife before driving it into the skull of a Brute who's helmet had been sliced in half by Adam.

"You're not bad!" Emile yelled as he reduced a Brutes Skull to paste against the wall.

"I could say the same thing to you!" Adam shot back as he slice a Brute shot in half so Emile could roll across the ground and point his shot gun into the Brute's face before pulling the trigger.

"What do you mean could?" Emile said, turning around to look at the now clear section of corridor.

…

"You still nervous?" Carter asked, looking at 498 as the pair walked towards their location (Well one of them was floating but...)

"No, It is my facility, I don't like people I know damaging it, I wont let these... things, defile it further." 498 spoke with conviction, he meant everything he said, they would not damage his facility.

"Good, then lets do our best to stop it from getting damaged." Carter said as the door in front of them slid open, Carter raised his gun to look at the Brute standing in front of him.

"Get away from the Oracle Demon." It spat, looking at Carter in disgust.

"How about no." Carter responded, trailing his weapon on the beast.

"Oracle?" 498 muttered, looking around as if expecting to see another intruder.

"Yes, don't worry we will get you away from this human." The Brute said, walking forwards as Carter opened fire... only to have his bullets not break the Brutes shield.

"Your efforts are futile." The Brute grinned, watching in amusement as Carter took steps back away from him. He was laughing, he wouldn't even need to try with this fight, he didn't even need to waste his ammunition on him.

"Why would I want to get away from him?" 498 said, floating in front of the Brute who looked down at him with confusion.

"I, what do you mean, he is trespassing in the Holy Temple! He is not worthy to touch our halls!"

"Our... What are you on about?" 498 asked in incredulously.

"The demon has the gall to stand in the temple the forerunners left to us! He has some nerve, these false reclaimers." The Brute explained, unsure why the Oracle was staying away from him, why was it staying so near the Demon?

"So you believe you are the one's these facility's were left to?" 498 asked the Brute, looking down at the ground to make sure his eye was harder to see.

"Yes, is it not our right to..." The Brute began before he had a hole burned in his torso, completely destroying his lady's shield's, the same that could protect Turak from a powerful explosion going off in the thing he was sitting in, 498 blasted through him with ease as the Brute fell to the ground. In the few seconds of life he had left he looked up as the oracle floated up to him and looking down at him, his eye starring at him dully.

"I am 498 Last Survivor, you and your kind are delusional and have trespassed in places you have no right to enter." he said coldly as the life faded from the Brutes eyes.

…

 _Are we over thinking this?_

 _No._

 _Are you sure, I mean maybe..._

 _Right now, sure, but what's to stop him form turning back into who he was before then, what if Ilia decides to go with him!_

 _You don't know that will happen._

 _You don't know it wont!_

 _She's better than that, you know she is._

"Six?" Kat asked, looking at thje Spartan who jolted and looked at Kat.

"Yeah?" The Spartan asked turning her helmeted head to look at her.

"You okay? you looked kinda spaced out for a second." Kat said, looking at the other girl with some concern.

"I'm fine." Six responded, not entirely convincing herself as she said it.

"You sure, you've looked... Off, ever since Adam showed up.

"He's a wanted terrorist." Six responded automatically.

"And Fin was part of a genocidal cult, you forgave him eventually, so what's your problem with Adam, based on what Ilia said about him earlier he has some good in him." Kat responded, looking at the Spartan and wishing the girl had her helmet off, she was much easier to read when she was like that.

"Its, well... Ilia..."

"What about her?" Kat asked as the pair walked.

"It's stupid..." Six muttered.

"It's getting in the way, ergo we need to deal with it now before a fight breaks out." Kat responded, looking at Six with concern. "So Noble Six, what's wrong?"

"I'm scarred... I'm worried about Ilia, I'm scared she'll want to head of with him... I don't think..." Six started before Kat started laughing.

"Well, you were right about one thing." Kat said, giggling as she looked at her teammate. "That was stupid."

"Thanks Kat, great support, ten out of ten would recommend." Six said flatly as her friend continued to giggle.

"Sorry, just, wow do you think she's that stupid?" Kat responed, finally able to stop giggling.

"Well no but..."

"Then stop worrying." Kat said, smiling at Six as the pair walked along, finally reaching the door they were meant to be protecting.

Just in time for the two doors to get blown off and hitting the pair in their respective faces.

The pair was flung back as they saw the situation was far worse than they had expected it to be.

As it turned out it wasn't just a fair few Jackals and some Brutes, they'd also brought a Hunter with them, a very large one behind a squad of giggling Jackals. It raised it's Plasma cannon, ready to end the pair before they could get there bearings and kicking their asses.

Thankfully they had nothing to worry about as a blast of yellow lightning fired off down the corridor and blew the hunters head clean off as a voice Six had never heard before yelled:

"Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on!?" Amber cried, looking at the group in confusion as she slumped against the wall panting.


	60. Chapter 60

Chapter 60: So we're dropping you into a firefight with your killer... Sorry about that.

Explaining to Amber what was going on took quite a lot of time, in fact it took so much time that they'd said goodbye to 498 (With a dire warning that if Ostium was forced to activate again it would literally break and never be useful again.) and gotten back into the Pelican to head back to Beacon.

"So let me get this straight, you five are from another dimension, he's a wanted terrorist and you're an ex terrorist now going out with a girl from another dimension." Amber said on the trip back, sitting in the back of the pelican and looking at Ilia, Jorge, Carter, Kat and Adam. (Six was flying)

"Yeah pretty much." Ilia said, looking back at Amber with a week smile. She wasn't wrong and Ilia wouldn't deny that her life and the people around her were completely insane.

"You'll notice they forgave her but not me." Adam said bitterly from the side.

"That's because you ordered Ilia dead and I happen to like her." Six called back from pilots seet.

"Six make sure we don't crash." Carter called back.

"Got it, just sending the code to the Atlas fleet." Six responded before thinking something and turning around to ask: "What do I do about him?"

"Say nothing for now, just tell Ozpin we have something to discuss." Carter responded, according to Emile Adam had been helpful during their fight, he at least deserved some kind of chance before they handed him over.

"Okay." Six said, a noticeable scowl on her face. The urge to ignore that order and telling them what was going on was only over ridden by the fact she respected Carter to much.

"Huh?" Six said her head tilted as she looked down at the incoming call icon. "Carter Ozpins calling."

"Okay I'm coming." Carter said, getting up walking towards the cockpit.

"Putting Ozpin on." Six said, flicking the on switch as Carter got nearer.

"Noble Team, are you there?" Ozpin asked, a note of concern in his voice.

"Yes, we all made it back, the trip was pretty uneventful." Carter said, noting Six raise an eyebrow as he said that.

"Is Amber okay? I'd like to talk to her." Ozpin asked as Carter nodded and said:

"Yes sir, she's fine, Amber come over here." Carter said, gesturing towards Amber who got up and walked towards the microphone.

"Professor, it's good to see you again." Amber said with a smile as she looked down at the microphone.

"The same to you Miss Amber, I never thought I was going to see you in good health again." Ozpin replied with a distinct edge of relief as he spoke.

"Same, last thing I could remember she was... Doing..." Amber said her eyes going the full thousand yards as she spoke.

"I know, Qrow informed me of what happened." Ozpin replied.

"So he saved me... I need to buy him a beer next time I see him." Amber nodded respectfully, having snapped out of the situation (Although her hand had risen to touch her face.)

"He hardly needs anyone to do that these days, but I'm sure he'll appreciate it." Ozpin reponded before (Metaphorically) Turning to Carter: "Listen, do not land at Beacon, we've managed to intercept a transmission from a bug we put on Cinder, She's having a meeting with some of her human allies in two days to discus the Dust ceased before they hand it over to Salem, we're never going to get a better chance to attack her without risking everyone at Beacon."

"So all of Vale's fine?" Amber asked, her gaze firming up slightly as she spoke.

"The meetings in Mountain Glen." Ozpin explained. "Apparently they had a second base out there because no one wants to look around too hard in a Grimm infested city."

"Of course they are." Six muttered darkly.

"Yes, so I want you to land in Mountain glen at these coordinates, if you travel for a day and hide for another one you will be able to intercept the meeting." Ozpin explained.

"Sir... Are you sure we can do this?" Carter asked, looking towards Amber who had gripped the backs of Six's seat.

"I have total faith in you, will you do it?" Ozpin asked.

"Ye..." Carter started before Amber said:

"Hang on sir! You haven't explained how I'm meant to get my powers back without killing Cinder?"

"..."

"Sir!" Amber cried, looking at the microphone in alarm.

"I, Listen if Salem gets control of the maiden powers..." Ozpin began before:

"No! I signed up to help people, not this!" Amber cried, looking aghast at the microphone.

"Amber..."

"No, there has to be another way!" The hysterical Maiden yelled.

"I'm afraid there isn't." Ozpin responded, his voice appearing to break as he spoke.

"But sir!" Amber cried.

"I'm sorry Amber, but we cannot let Salem get her hands on the Maiden powers, as long as Cinder is alive..." Ozpin said, his voice firming up again even if it was still shaking slightly.

"But, How do you know it would go back to me!" Amber cried, her tone implying she didn't believe a word of it but was desperate for an excuse to not kill Cinder. "What if it breaks of and goes tot aht girl she had with her when she attacked, she might not..."

"This lady attacked you, and you want to not kill her?" Six asked, the bemusement clear in her voice.

"Yes! I didn't sign up for this! I wanted to help people, not murder them!" Amber cried, looking at Six in shock as she stared dully back at her.

"But, wont it be worse if she's still alive?" Six once again asked confused.

"Not necessarily, what if we could convince her to join us, what if we..." Amber began before Six said:

"Look, I really don't get this Maiden situation but I highly doubt this woman was willing to attack you the was she did I highly doubt you'll get any mercy form her this time." Carter said, putting a hand on Ambers shoulder.

"I, I don't..." Amber started.

"I'll do it if you don't want to." Six said bluntly, shocking Amber who violently turned to look at Six as Carter scowled.

"You'll what!" Amber gasped, looking at Six as her dull eyes looked back at her.

"If you don't want to do it yourself, I'll do it. It wouldn't be the first time I put the bullet in someone's skull." Six said cool as she pleased, while everyone in the back of the ship face palmed (Even Adam who agreed that Six was being sensible knew it was a bad thing to say.)

"I, no, you can't, I, I!" Amber stammered, looking at the purple haired Spartan in shock.

"If its better for everyone on this planet to kill her then I'll do it."

"But, but, you can't, no, I, no! I, I, no!" Amber stammered as Carter took over, giving Six a very distinct 'Shut the hell up' look.

"Listen, Amber, I'm sorry but there might be no other way of doing it and if anything I've been told about these powers is true then we cannot let this Salem person control any of it, I'm sorry we might not have a choice." Carter said in a gentle tone. Amber turned her head to look up at Carter. She shut her eyes and her hand tight end on Six's chair.

"I don't want to... I was trying to drive her off, I didn't want, I never wanted..." She said, tears starting to flow from her eyes as she spoke.

"I understand." Carter said, glaring at Six for her lack of tact. "But sometimes we have to do things we don't like for the benefit of everyone we care about."

"But, I... I know but..." Amber sighed as she finished speaking. "I want to try and talk her down, if it becomes a fight I will do it, but, I want to..."

"That's enough, we'll be protecting you from the sidelines, if it becomes a fight we will help you."

"I, Thank you." Amber said, her week smile returning to her newly restored face.

"Hopefully she'll listen to reason." Carter said, gesturing for Amber to return to the back of the ship. Amber nodded and headed back to the seats. Once she was out of hearing range Carter turned to Six.

"What the hell was that about!?" He hissed at the Spartan, who looked somewhat taken aback as she looked at her.

"What the fuck did you want! I thought that was a good solution!" Six hissed in response.

"I, You know what, Ilia you want to explain what's going on?" Carter said, turning to smile at the Faunus girl who had walked up next to them when Amber sat down and glared at Six.

Six went red and words became hard to say as Ilia looked at her.

"Would you really do that?" Ilia said, her face impossible to read as she spoke.

"If I had to." Six eventually said.

"Would you kill me if I became a threat?" Ilia asked. Six froze up inside her as she looked at her.

"What, no! Of course I wouldn't!" Six blurted in horror. "Ilia why would you..."

"Because that's how he started!" Ilia cried, looking at Six, her eyes focused hard on her girlfriend.

"Please, this is exactly what happened to him, he started killing when he had to, then it started coming to easily; he began not to care what he had to do he became... Well what you see back their, Six please don't do that!" The chameleon girl cried.

"I, I'm not like him!" Six blurted as a nagging voice in the back of her head started saying:

 _But you could be._

"I know you're not, so please don't act like him! Please, killing someone because you wont, it still hurts! Adam did the exact same thing for me, please..."

"I, I'm sorry... But what if..." Six began.

"I'm not saying don't kill her, if what we're being told is true we really need to end this person, but the way you said it, so casually, it was like killing someone doesn't even bother you!" Ilia blurted.

"It, It doesn't."

The cockpit went silent.

"What?" Ilia asked nervously.

"Back home, I never told you, I haven't told anyone, what they used me for... I wasn't just a solider, I was used for... I was the best of the best of the best, They took me, some high ranking ass, he took me, used me as a fucking wet man, I just killed people, over and over again, I did nothing to resist, I just followed orders, just like I was trained to! It doesn't bother me anymore! I just pulled the trigger, this one guy, he looked so young, maybe nineteen or something, he looked like the boyfriend of one of the members, I don't know, he might not have been related, he was piss scared he'd never have spoken and no one would have listened to him! I could have left him, I could have not pulled the trigger, but no... I didn't... I put the bullet through his head, I was angry he hadn't been caught in the explosion!"

Six was crying now, tears flooding down her face as she spoke.

"I could have done anything, I should have done something, but I had my orders and I followed them..."

"Six, I, I didn't know..." Ilia said, to Six's surprise she actually moved closer to the Spartan.

 _What, why is she coming nearer._

 _Hell if I know, if what I know about social interactions is true admitting to doing that generally means..._

 _She should be screaming and running calling us a monster._

 _Wow, you got dark._

 _This isn't exactly a happy subject._

 _Well I'm with you there._

"I never told you, I haven't even told them yet..." Six said, unable to force a smile onto her face as she spoke, she was crying to much, Ilia's face was swimming in and out of focus in front of her. "How could I... I, I'm a... a... I'm a monster. A monster who thought she could do better." She finished, hitting the auto pilot (which meant giving control to over to Seven) because she just couldn't fly anymore and she needed to support her face as she cried.

To her immense surprise Ilia was still there. Standing next to her, looking down at the ground as a tear escaped her eye.

"You think your the only person to kill someone?" Ilia asked, her voice losing it's usual warmth as she spoke.

"I've done it, not directly but I know, Adam always said they'd get away, but I'm not dumb, I've set bombs I've built traps, I've fought to get away, I chose to do those things." The Chameleon said simply as she crouched down next to Six.

"Ilia..." Six began as the tears started flowing more from her eyes.

"Adam always told me that it was fine, Blake told me not to worry about it, that Adam wouldn't lye, that no one would got seriously injured! And I believed it! I wanted to believe it! I was just... I mean, Just, how, I couldn't!" Ilia cried as the flood gates of her eyes broke and started to flow down her face.

"But, you're not like that, you never looked at someone and pulled the trigger, you never..." Six blurted.

"I still did it, do you think I'm a monster?" Ilia asked, looking down at Six as she shook her head violently.

"No you're not! You never were!" Six cried, unable to believe Ilia would talk like that about herself.

"So why are you!?" Ilia cried. "The Six I know isn't like that! The Six I know saved my life without a thought she held a ton of rock above her just to keep me safe! The Six I know watched dumb anime and sings along with the theme song, the Six I know collects plushies! The Six I know likes to help people! No matter the cost!"

"And the Ilia I know is adorable, silly, funny, she's amazingly skilled and will strip to hide form an enemy, she'll dive onto the back of a monster to help me and my friends! She's the one who made being trapped by a ton of rock worth doing! She's the one I think about, she's the one who came to Menagerie to look after me! She's, she's amazing, she, she isn't a monster!" Six cried, looking at Ilia who threw her arms around Six as both girls cried their eyes out.

"Neither are you, you've had bad things happen to you, we both have, but it's not, we can be better I know we can, you are better!" Ilia sobbed into her girlfriends shoulder.

"So are you." Six sobbed, pulling her tighter.

She felt like crap right now, Ilia defiantly felt that way, now was the time to cry, then was the time to make up, then was the time to fight. Six wasn't sure what she'd do, but right now she didn't care, right now she just wanted Ilia to stay close and let her forget her problems, she was going to help, she was going to help everyone, but right now she had to help her, they had to help each other, they would...

Words were to hard right now, they just wanted to be together for these now, so that's what they were until Seven guided them to the landing spot.


	61. Chapter 61

Chapter 61: Why does this have to become hard now?

Six and Ilia didn't talk much on the trip to the overnight halt. Six muttered an apologies to Amber before taking the lead with Ilia next to Jorge.

Mountain Glen did not seam to appreciate their visit, not only did they have to change the planed route multiple times because of massive holes in the ground (Ruby had mentioned something bout bombs when she'd explained what happened when her team visited Mountain Glen a month or two ago, however given Ruby was explaining this while demolishing a massive plateful of cookies at the same time so most of it was completely incomprehensible) But it was also crawling with Grimm all of whom seamed to focus in on their group.

Six was glad this wasn't really a stealth mission because they were being extremely loud and swearing quite a bit. The only one who seamed to enjoy being attacked every other minute was Emile (Who was having a little too much fun dealing with the Grimm.) Although Carter pointed something out after the seventh attack.

"Hold on." He said, lowering his gun as the last Beowolf crashed to the ground.

"What?" Emile asked, turning to look at the leader of Noble team.

"If we keep fighting everything we run across we aren't going to have any ammo for tomorrow." Carter pointed out. Six nodded, all she had left outside of her hammer (She hadn't even expecting a long trip and as such had completely neglected to stock up on ammo) was one cartridge of lightning dust.

"Okay, so what are you saying? We should melee the monsters to death? Cause if you need knives I've got 'em." Emile said with a smile.

"No, the more fights we get in now the more problems we're going to cause for ourselves latter, I'm, suggesting we take a different hiding spot for tonight." He explained, pointing towards an abandoned shopping mall (not that you would find any building in Mountain Glen that wasn't abandoned)

"But don't we need to be somewhere tomorrow morning?" Amber asked, looking at Carter as he nodded.

"Yes but we are near enough that this wouldn't be a bad place to stop for tonight, we have until eleven in the morning, if we get up at a reasonable time we can still make it easily." Carter explained.

"Well I'm for it." Six said, looking up a the sky and noticing rain clouds clearly formed and based on how they looked, ready to start their job.

"Same." Amber muttered, rubbing her feet as she looked at the mall (I don't blame her, she was going bare foot this entire time, maybe we could raid a good amount of clothing from there, it's not like their was anyone to charge us inside)

The rest of the group agreed to shelter there for tonight and they bolted towards the mall, Jorge pulling the doors open as they were automatic and the power had clearly stopped coming years ago.

"So were are we going to hole up?" Emile asked as we walke dinto the large entrance hall.

They all looked around, it was a decent sized establishment, with about ten average sized shops arranged five on either side with one bigger shop in between the smaller groups. (Making eleven per floor) with three floors that made a total of thirty three shops in this building, plenty opf hiding spots.

"Upstairs, there will be less Grimm up there." Six said instantly, remembering a few facts from part of one of the classes she'd actually managed to attend (The number of those was embarrassingly small)

"Aren't their bird Grimm?" Emile asked.

"Yeah, and Griffins, remember them?" Jorge asked sarcastically, like it was actually possible to forget a giant albino monster ripping your plane out of the sky.

"This isn't the right Area for either, Nevermores wouldn't nest in a building like this when there are plenty of taller more open buildings around us." Six explained.

"And the Griffins?" Jorge asked with an eyebrow raised as he pulled his helmet off.

"Wrong area, the nearest nest is about two hundred miles away, ergo no need to worry about them." Six said smugly as she walked towards the stairs, turning around and calling to Amber and Ilia while walking backwards: "Come on, I think theres a clothing store upstairs! Lets go raid it!"

"Coming!" Ilia called in response, grinning at her girlfriend.

Amber did follow, but Ilia couldn't help but hear her mutter:

"So she's okay with killing and stealing, does this girl have any morals!?"

Amber knew she was being to harsh on her, her situation made perfect sense and she knew it was the right thing to do to kill Cinder and she did need more clothes (Miniskirt and tube top was not a good thing to be wearing during rain/combat, both of which were coming) But, did she have to be so... Unbothered by it?

"You coming?" Ilia asked looking back at Amber, pretending she hadn't heard her muttering.

"Yeah, erm..." She turned to look at the rest.

"We'll find a place to sleep in." Carter said, gesturing for her to follow Ilia.

"Yeah, that bedding place on the second floor looks like a good bet." Emile said with a smirk.

"Okay, we'll meet up there." Carter said, making sure Amber had heard before she left with the others. "Come on, lets check that food shop, there might be some canned food or something."

"Check the chocolate isle! That stuff lasts for years!" Six called, standing outside the clothing store and tapping her foot impatiently.

"Will do!" Jorge called.

"Not exactly a Spartan diet is it." Emile said with a smirk as they headed to the food store.

"Seeing as she needs to put on weight I'll forgive it." Carter muttered as he looked over at Emile, who smirked at his leader as they headed off.

…

"Are you okay?" Six asked, looking at Amber as she dithered by the racks of clothing, most of which was out of style but it was still functional and surprisingly well maintained given the store had been abandoned decades ago.

"I, I don't want to steal." She muttered.

Six didn't even fight the urge to face palm.

"Seriously, your worrying about things like this now?" Ilia asked, a look of quite disbelief on her face.

"I know it's dumb, but it still feels wrong." Amber muttered.

"You've got a fight for your life tomorrow and your seriously worried about taking some clothes no ones touched or thought about in literal years." Six said, unable to comprihend Ambers thought process.

 _Not killing I get, but this, really?_

 _Yeah,I mean, just take em, if no one cares why should you?_

 _She's a good person?_

 _Too good a person, being a good person doesn't guaranty anything and this really isn't that big a crime._

 _Yeah, she's being just a tad ridiculous isn't she?_

"I know!" Amber muttered, hiding her face behind her hands.

"Look, if you dont want to do it I'll knock you out and put something on you." Six said, knowing full well Amber wasn't going to like that idea.

 _Maybe she'll get off her ass and do it._

"No, no! That's fine! I'll do it." Amber said, looking at the racks before picking something she liked.

"I think we should both do the same." Six said, noting Ilia was wearing the one outfit she'd always worn and on a more personal note: Six was wearing a random shirt and trouser set she'd worn for working out and just picket at random the day she'd left (She'd elected against her ODST armor because they were trying to avoid drawing attention to themselves) It stank and hadn't been cleaned properly in months. So Six was in the mood to steal something better.

"Yeah, I need to give this thing a wash at some point." Ilia said, looking down at her suit in embarrassment.

"Smells better than mine." Six said with a grin as she looked at the racks, only stopping to pull her shit and trousers off.

"That I can believe." Ilia said with a grin as she wondered off towards a different part of the store.

"Hey do they have a sixteen over there?" Amber asked, walking over to Six. She was half dressed, wearing a medium length skirt (Stopped just above the knees) and bizarrely, a white pair of healed boots with a fake fur lining around the top.

"Erm, yeah." Six said, pointing towards the garment as Amber walked over, muttering apologies under hear breath as she took the garment, it was while she was changing Six asked:

"Why heals?"

"Huh?" Amber asked, a shirt taken of the rack and in her hand.

"Why high heals. I don't get it, how do you fight in them!?" Six blurted, looking at Amber and remembering the disastrous attempts of walking in those things.

"Erm, I just do, why do you have difficulty with it?" Amber asked.

"Yes, can barely go a few steps without falling over." Six explained as a garment caught her eye.

"Really?"

"Never wore anything except flats until like a month ago." Six responded as she took the skirt of the rack.

"A poodle skirt?" Amber asked, somewhat in disbelief.

"I thought it looked good." Six muttered, looking down at the gorund.

"It's fine, just, not what I expected you to go for." Amber muttered as the Spartan stepped into the garment, giving it a quick swish before looking up at the Fall Maiden.

"Why? What did you expect? Black leather? Chrome skulls? Death metal shirts?" Six asked, looking at Amber who went red.

"Seriously?" Ilia asked, walking back into view a pair of flared genes and a tight fitting three quarter length shirt.

"Well, I'm, sorry, but..." Amber stammered as she looked around awkwardly.

"But what? The fact I'm willing to kill the girl who flat out attempted to murder you makes me a bad person or something?" Six asked, her head tilted to the side as she looked at the Maiden.

"It's not that, I'm not stupid okay..." Amber said, trying to meet Six's eyes.

"Could of fooled me." Six muttered darkly.

"Listen!" Amber yelled, her right eye lighting up for a second as she cried out. "It's not that that's bugging me! Well it is, but it's not, look! Why are you so okay with it!"

"Because it has to be done! What other fucking choice do we have!" Six cried.

"I don't know!" Amber yelled, the lights in the room flashed on as the rain started falling outside as her eye glowed brighter and lightning blasted off from her and struck the nearby lighting. "Okay, I don't fucking know! But the fact you just said it! So calmly, like it wasn't an issue to you!"

"I can't let it be an issue!" Six yelled back: "Remanent is my home, it's truly that, its not some place I'm stuck! Not some place I randomly ended up stuck in! It's my home and she's a threat to it! I can't let this happen!"

"I get that!" Amber yelled. "I heard everything you said to Ilia! We all did! I get why, but why are you so okay, your not even acting like killing someone (no matter how bad) is a big deal!"

"Soldier in a war for humanity against genocidal Alien Xeolots!" Six yelled back. "Kind of had to take that attitude! I'm already fucked up! Why risk anyone else! It has to be done for fucks sake! We can't leave her alive! The powers don't work like that!"

"I know... But the fact you don't even regret it!" Amber responded.

"Look!" Six cried, throwing her arms up in frustration. "We're just going around in fucking circles! I don't fucking care! If I get the chance tomorrow I'm killing her! You can have your god dam moral high ground! Which means fuck all with the rest of the world at risk! You're a fucking Maiden, you have magical powers! The world is on the line! Everything is going down in less than a month! A big army and if we lose then that's it! The world gets fucked and we're all dead! So forgive me if I'm a bit on fucking edge right now! Because I can tell you now you pampered princess ass! I didn't risk everything finding my friends! I didn't travel all over the fucking world to let some selfish tool fuck everything up for her own fucking moral high ground!"

Six panted heavily after her rant, looking at Amber, her eyes aglow with anger as she got ready to yell back at Amber when she tried to deafened herself...

"You're right." Amber muttered.

"What?" Six said, sure she'd misheard her.

"I don't like it, but if she wont listen then I'll do it, I have to talk to her first. I can't not give her a chance."

"You're giving her a chance to attack you." Six pointed out.

"I know, Please, have my back, if she goes to move I'll know she wont take it, but I have to give her a chance first." Amber muttered, looking at Six as the fire in her eyes died down slightly.

"Fair enough." Six said, a week smile on her face as she looked at Amber. "But I swear if you don't!"

"I will, your right, I never asked for these powers, but I can't get rid of them without making things worse, and I do want to help people. It was all I ever wanted to do and this is how I'll do it if I have too."


	62. Chapter 62

Chapter 62: Remains

No one spoke much for the rest of the day. They did sleep in the bedding store and after eating a meal comprised of ready meals who's health benefits could probably judged by the fact they hadn't been touched in decades and were still fine to eat.

The bedding situation was funny, there was clearly more than enough beds for all of them to have one to themselves, but barley anyone slept alone.

Carter and Kat slept in a dusty four poster at the back of the room, their scruffy demeanour looked immensely strange in such a grand bed.

Jorge went off on his own, his bulk and inability to take his power armor off meant he was one of the two who slept alone on a somewhat rusted steel framed bed (They'd had to drag it away from a leak in the ceiling and change the mattress)

Adam slept on his own on a fold out sofa bed, he was on his side and had one hand on Wilt's handle as he slept. Six wondered for a second if he was just so used to being attacked he couldn't relax, for a split second she felt a pang of sympathy for him, then she looked at the red head sleeping next to her and decided to stop feeling that way.

The strangest sleeping situation however came from Emile and Amber... Mostly that they were sharing a bed, Six had been utterly baffled when she'd asked:

"Erm... Emile?" She'd asked, glancing around as her face took on a very slight red tint.

"Yeah?" He'd asked as he found a bed and started to take off the harness he used to keep his knives on his armor. (Apparently he was unsure he wasn't going to roll over and accidental stab himself given the somewhat iffy quality of the harness)

"I, I don't want to be alone tonight." She's said, the tint changing into more of a face paint. "Could I...? With you...?"

Six honestly thought Amber was being adorable at this point.

"Sure." Emile said. "Although I warn you, this armor's heavy, not as much as the big guy over their, but still heavy, if I roll over onto you it will hurt."

"I'm okay with that." Amber weekly smiled.

Six and Ilia had elected to take a plain double bed at the end of the room, grabbing an extra duvet of a different bed to deal with the small draft leaking through the wall (The draft may have been small but it was also a fierce cold and Six had gotten worried when Ilia's skin went a shade of pale blue while her hair adapted a darker shade) In addition to this the pair were hugging each other tightly. Six felt safe with Ilia's body pressed into hers. She wasn't sure why; If anything she was in more danger if she couldn't move instantly, but Ilia was comforting and Six couldn't deny she was warm.

It wasn't much better the next day, once again they ate ancient ready meals that had somehow failed to go off and then they set out. It was amazing how few Grimm they encountered, with how nervous most of the group was it seamed obvious they should have encountered more by now, maybe they were busy.

 _Wouldn't it be great if we got there and Cinder had been torn apart by Grimm already._

 _Oh heck yeah, I mean we'd probably have to kill the things first but we'd be extremely grateful to them._

Well it obviously wasn't going to happen, what exactly was going on was even more confusing. The group knew they were near Cinder and her forces (Whoever they were) so they elected to get the high ground by darting into a couple of nearby office buildings and sprinting up the stairs to get to roughly the fifth floors in their respective towers to look down at the ground.

"Am I the only one who's completely terrified?" Six asked, looking down at the sight bellow (While admiring the buildings architecture, it was decades old and the floors weren't shattering under the weight of five Spartans)

"This looks like fun." Emile commented, looking down a there target.

It was undeniably a weird situation and for the Remnant natives it was one of the scariest thing's they'd ever seen.

Standing at the end of a disused park was a group of human mobsters, lead by someone Six recognised.

"Neo?" Six muttered under her breath, looking at the woman with her distinctive pink and brown hair.

"Who's Neo?" Carter asked, scanning around the group of mobsters.

"The one with the partially pink hair." Six explained.

"Hang on her? Six why are you scared of her?" Emile snorted as he looked at the person in question. "She'd tiny!"

"She can make decoys and render herself and anyone with her invisible to get away, if she uses that with Cinder we're completely screwed." Six explained, looking at the rest of the scene.

The rest of the scene however was what made it scary. Grimm. One hundred of them, standing in two thick rows on either side of Neo and her crew as their target walked up the row, two people flanking her.

"Emerald and Mercury." Six muttered, looking at the pair. She knew them from Beacon and couldn't say she was surprised to see they were Cinders allies, the trio were hardly ever seen apart at this point.

"Do you know much about them?" Carter asked. "You're the only one who knows much about these people."

"I can't say much." Six admitted, she'd spent most of her time at Beacon not there and looking for Noble team, but she had been in a few spars with the pair of them and she could make some assumptions. "But what I can say from the few fights I've been in with them Mercury favours his legs and seams to have guns built into his boots, they have an enormous amount of kickback and are quite a pain if they hit you in guts." Six explained, thinking back to an immensely painful sparing match in which she'd let her guard down and taken both of his feet to her guts (Which were only protected with a somewhat faulty ODST shield generator at the time.)

"What about the other one?" Carter asked, focusing in on Emerald.

"She has two pistols with scythe blades built into the ends. She's very fast and hard to dodge, however, the most difficult thing about fighting her one on one is her semblance. I don't know exactly what it is but what you see never matched with what's actually happening, if we have to fight her don't do it alone." Six finished.

"Okay. You've fought Cinder before, do you know anything about how she fights?" Carter said, he wanted to know as much as possible about who he was fighting before they started the fight.

"Only once, she used Dust and presumably maiden powers to make a pair of twin swords, other than that she seamed fairly normal for this world."

"If she's got my powers than I guarantee she's got more up her sleeve than that." Amber added, looking over at Six, who nodded at her to continue.

"When I had full control over the Fall Maiden powers I was capable of flying, I could summon storms, on top of that she's skilled with a bow and arrow." She muttered, rubbing her back with her hand.

"Okay, so how do we take her out?" Emile asked over the radio.

"The powers are only effective if you know to use them, if I'd seen it coming I could have stopped her attack on my back, so if you distract her I'll try to get in close and finish her." Amber explained.

"Okay, but what about weapons, you don't have one, are you sure your powers are strong enough?" Kat inquired.

"I can probably do it, but I wish I had my staff on me." Amber said.

"What was your staff like?" Six asked, wishing they'd had the foresight to think of all these details last night instead of minutes before the attack.

"A long stick with two dust crystals embedded at the end, I could probably make one again if I had the materials." Amber clarified.

"Would these work if we could find the staff?" Six asked, taking out her lightning dust cartridges and ejecting the ammo and handing it to Amber.

"Well it's not perfect but yeah I could work with this if I had a handle of some kind..." Amber started to say. She never finished because Jorge walked towards one of the windows and pulled the blinds free, ripping off the actual blind part and handing the metal cylinder to Amber.

"That'll do!" She grinned as the parts glowed and morphed into a weapon Amber was sure could hold up for a few fights.

"Good, so when do we go in to attack?" Emile asked, looking over at the force outside the window.

"When the meetings breaking up." Carter explained.

"Okay, hang on..." Six muttered, looking down at the box Mercury was dragging behind him. "...What the hell are they transporting."

"Hold on." Seven said, the AI slowly materialising from behind them. "Give me a sec, I'll just borrow some of the old CCTV systems and see if I can get a broadcast going."

With a few seconds Sevens Tricorn wearing model vanished to be replaced by a large square screen. (Seven was making one of these for each building) which let them see what was going on down below.

…

"So, do you have what we wanted?" One of Neo's goons asked, looking at Cinder, a surprising amount of courage on his face given he was surrounded by man eating Monsters.

"Of course, Mercury." Cinder called, her smooth voice deceptively friendly as the boy dragged the heavy crate along and flipped it upright.

"Ow! Hey watch it!" A voice called from inside.

Neo's eyes lit up as Mercury kicked the lid off with an explosion from his boot and the crates contents fell out and sprawled on the ground.

"See, we kept our word. Do you have the dust?" Cinder asked, her voice going cold as she looked at Neo and her group who nodded, gesturing to the crates behind her.

"Good, then I guess our Business is over." Cinder said as the Grimm moved forward and began to pick up the crates as Neo ran over to the man who'd fallen out of the crate, offering him a hand up as he looked at her.

"Hey Neo, it's good to see you shorty." Roman Torchwick said, grinning as the younger girl looked at him, giggled silently before throwing her arms around him.

"I still say this is a waste, we should have tried to get something more out of all this Dust..." One of the goons said before getting the life scared out of him as Neo span around on her toes and had the sharpened point of her umbrella pointed in his face, a deadly grin on her face as she looked at him.

"Oh come on Boris, aren't you happy to see me again?" Roman asked as one of the other members walked forward to hand him his hat and cane back. "Thank you Sam, now, lets make sure this transaction goes smoothly, we'll get a decent haul of the next one."

"I'm sure you will Roman..." Cinder started, before something happened to her hand, it lit up with a weird black rune and something crawled out of it (causing all the people watching gasp/gag.) "...Oh, Salem, how nice... Hmm... Yes, I will... This would have been nice to know before we staged a prison break. Yes I know, Okay, I'll see it done."

"Call from the boss?" Roman asked, his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked over at Cinder, something was wrong and he started to take some slow very careful steps backwards.

"Yes, I'm afraid we don't need any more dust from you Roman." She said, starting to raise her hand.

"Oh, well that's a shame, well you know how to find me the next time you need..."

"I'm afraid we don't want anyone who knows the details of what's going on, sorry Roman." Cinder said with a fake smile as her hand finished raising and a blast of lightning blasted out of it. Causing Neo and Roman to shatter into shards.

…

It wasn't the end of those two though, Six knew that and could see them running towards the building the other half of Noble team was in.

"Someone catch them!" She cried as she went to start the fight. "They know what's going on, any inlet is vital so don't let them get away!"

"On it!" Carter and Kat yelled at the same time as the two sprinted towards the street.

"What about them!" Amber gasped, looking towards the crowd of goons as the Grimm turned to face them.

"Not sure we can do anything about them!" Six yelled as she bolted down the stairs. "We need to get Cinder!"

"Okay." Amber said, taking one last look at the men before igniting her power and leaping out of the window

Sadly Ambers little bit of magic with her staff and this leap had accidental alerted Cinder as to what was going on.

Apparently the powers were still connected even if they were split, well it was more like both half's had been fractured and were now stretched apart, and turning one end on had alerted the other too it's presence... Which meant Cinder had stopped what she was doing and was now looking right at her.

"Fuck!" Amber swore as Cinder leapt into the air to meet her.

Amber panicked for a second as Cinder started to dispensary from her view, until she suddenly came back after a burst of gunfire from Jorge's chain gun.

Emerald had been trying to stop Amber from seeing what was going on, but had failed to notice the people helping her.

The fight was a chaotic mess, From Six's experience most battles were chaotic; sure when you learnt about them it was very clear and easy to read, but when you were in the thick of things it was all a huge mess.

Six swung her hammer, trying to get in close to Emerald or Mercury but the reality was a hundred Grimm took priority over anything else as they were more likely to rip you apart before you reached your target.

Noble Team and Ilia fought as hard as they could, hacking, slashing, shooting, stabbing, blasting and all other words that meant using guns and violence to reduce the number of enemy combatants.

All the while above them the two Maidens fought. If Six had had the chance to look up at them she would have been amazed by the ferocity and sceptical of the fight. Each of them floated off the ground and blasted lightning at each other, pulling debris of the ground and ignited them until they were red hot and firing them at each other. They carried and twist, each of them dodging the others attacks, only just able to stay focused on what was going on.

"How are you still alive!" Cinder cried, looking at Amber as the two flew at each other, Amber raising her staff in elss than a second to block Cinders Dust sword slash.

"Guess I put my faith in the right people!" Amber yelled back, forcing her staff forwards to send Cinder flying.

"Ozpin, you think you can trust him!?" Cinder laughed as pulled another sword together and went in for a series of rapid slashed, each one narrowly missing Amber who was just able to counter each blow.

"I know I can!" Amber responded, sending two bolts of lightning towards her, each of which was caught by Cinder and thrown into the crowd (Ironically missing the enemy combatants and taking out some of the Grimm)

"You're more of a fool then I thought!" Cinder cackled, her eyes shrinking as she moved in and shot her own bolts over at Amber.

"No you are! You think you can trust her? Salem's using you!" Amber yelled, flying into Cinder and kicking her in the guts with both her feet.

"I know! But she can't get rid of me! She needs me!" Cinder cried back as she moved higher into the air.

"And once you've done what she wants!?" Amber responded, causing Cinder to faulter for a second before looking at her.

"What are you saying?" She asked calmly, the air going quite as grey clouds formed in the sky, the rain from the other day was apparently not done as it started to fall. It dropping being the only noise the Maidens could hear (Mostly because they were far enough of the ground that they couldn't hear the gunfire or Grimm noised anymore)

"I'm saying stop this, change sides, stop doing her work and stop this nonsense!" Amber yelled, looking at her opponent, part of her begging Cinder could see reason, begging her not to...

"Ha!" Cinder yelled, diving towards Amber, her swords together as she went for a finishing blow.

"You're a fool." Amber said, Six having been proven right she turned sideways at the last second, Cinder missing her completely as she cairned past her. Amber raised her hand to the sky and a bolt of lightning was called.

Cinder turned in mid air, trying to look for Amber and make another run at her, but she couldn't see her. Her attention was directed towards the yellow blast heading towards her. It seamed to move slowly towards her, time slowed as the Cinder went to move.

It was a shame she was too slow and only succeeded in getting her head out of the way, not the rest of her.

The lightning ran through her, her body glowed yellow for a second as she fell to the ground with a hard crash.

Six was happy to see Cinder hit the ground as the last Grimm was gunned down by Jorge, she was glad the fight was over, her Semblance had given out and she could no longer keep the armor materialised.

It was then Six made a very big mistake. If she'd been sensible she would have brought her hammer down on the fallen Cinder to make sure she was dead and out of the fight... but she didn't and that was a mistake.

As she got closer to take a closer look to check she was dead (Instead of doing the smart thing and assuming she wasn't) Cinder sprang to life, her hand was exposed and something fired off out of her hand.

The black goo exploded around Six's face, latching onto Six's face and wrapping around it tightly. She was dragged forwards by the surprisingly strong Cinder.

"Six!" Ilia cried, going to move forward before Jorge grabbed her around the wait.

"A smart move." Cinder grinned, her hair plastered to her back as she was drenched by the falling rain, her eyes still contracted looked down at the Spartan as the goo glowed purple around the edges as Six felt all her strength vanish form her; her legs buckling as she crashed to the ground.

"Let her go!" Carter yelled (Him and Kat having failed to catch Neo and Roman and having elected to return to the main fight, Kat running off to try and get Cinders hench people) aiming his rifle at Cinder, who laughed as she looked at him.

"You can try that if you want, but I wouldn't, it wont do much." Cinder responded with a smirk as the goo straightened around Six's face.

The pain was immense, it felt like she was being suffocated and crushed to death as she tried to pull it off, but the longer the goo stayed stuck to her face the harder it was to do anything, her strength was vanishing from her and her arms soon felt like nothing more than dead weights stuck to her.

"What are you doing to her!" Ilia cried, struggling to get free of Jorge's grip.

"She has a nice Semblance, and seeing it in action today confirmed it for me." Cinder smirked as Amber descended, gasping and flying towards her, before Cinder span on the spot and shot more of the black stringy stuff out of her hand at the other Fall Maiden, wrapping around her waist and flaring yellow as Amber fought to stay in the air before she crashed to the ground.

"Try to stop me and I'll kill both of them." Cinder said, looking at the rest of Noble team, or at least all the present members.

"Seven can we do anything?" Carter hissed, desperately trying to think of a way out of their current predicament.

"I can't think of anything, I'm sorry I don't know..." Seven muttered, her eyes aglow with calculations and thought processes as she desperately tried to think of something, anything!

…

Not that they could have helped but not all of Noble team was in the courtyard, Kat and Adam had been the first two to reach Emerald and Mercury and were chasing the pair.

Neither side was having an easy time of stopping the other. Kat and Adam had short ranged weaponry while Emerald and Mercury didn't have the time to stop and aim behind them without getting caught before they could fire a shot off.

The four of them were running in a huge circle around the park, The rain wasn't slowing any of them down as they rain, their feet hitting the ground and splashing water up around them as the rain got heavier and heavier.

"Just give up!" Adam yelled, his brow irritated as he yelled at the two fleeing hench people.

Neither of them responded, they just kept running. Eventually the four of them ran back towards the park, Kat gasped as she saw what was happening to Six.

"No!" She cried, her distraction causing her to trip, she managed to catch herself before she hit the ground but she still staggered and Emerald and Mercury was able to get further away from them.

Adam didn't cry out, he just sped up, this mission had gone about as wrong as it ever could, he had to cut the strands, he was getting ready to free wilt when he was blasted by lightning.

"You always were a fool Adam." Cinder said with such disinterest it was almost funny.

"Urgh..." He groaned from the ground, curling up tighter as he tried to get up, but he couldn't, his Aura was broken and he couldn't risk taking another direct hit.

No one could do anything, Amber eventually crashed to the ground as the power was wrenched from her by Cinder.

"Guess she's done." Cinder said, looking down at Six who had gone ragdoll, her body unable to do anything she collapsed to the ground at an awkward angle.

"Six!" Ilia cried, finally able to get free of Jorge and run towards her downed girlfriend.

"Get back!" Emerald cried, jumping in between Ilia and Cinder, her guns aimed right at Ilia.

Ilia didn't listen, she kept running, moving towards her as fast as she could, pulling her whip out and lashed it towards her, it caught Emeralds face, wrapping itself around her and with strength bolstered by adrenalin she was able to rip Emerald off the ground, sending her flying towards Kat who looked at the girl and slashed her sword, which ran it's superheated plasma blade across the middle of her face.

Emerald fell to the ground, clutching the part of her face which used to hold her right eye, but now only boasted a significant plasma burn.

"That was a mistake." Cinder said, her face sporting a cold rage as she looked at Ilia. "Time to see what I can do with this power." She muttered as she called upon Six's stolen Semblance.

She smiled as she felt the power rush through her, she grew taller in seconds and looked down at Ilia, she couldn't wait, she could feel the power surging through her, she could feel her muscles growing and tensing, each one of them growing stronger until...

 _Crack!_

"Argh!" Cinder cried, clutching her arm in agony as the bone snapped backwards, only a second later her leg buckled at the knee, moving forwards and cracking, the pain was enormous as Cinder fell to the ground.

"Cinder!" Emerald cried, running towards the older woman as she fell to the ground. Emerald knelled down next to her, turning to yell at Noble team: "What's happening to her!?"

"She's to old." Jorge said, having seen this process before as Cinder was reduced to a child's playdoh figure, being ripped and twisted with no concern for her safety or how her body was supposed to be oriented.

"What do you mean!? Save her!" Emerald yelled, looking at Cinder then to the downed Six, she unfurled her weapon and put it to Six's throat. "Tell me or I swear!"

"We can't do anything." Carter said.

 _We also don't want to._

"No! Do something!" Emerald cried as Cinder continued to crack and spasm sickeningly.

But they couldn't, Carter wasn't lying. He knew what was going on, Jorge had told him about it when he'd asked them if the Spartan three's had ever had any wash outs. When he asked what that meant Jorge had told him that some of the Spartan two's hadn't survived the process and had been left deformed and crippled as a result.

Spartans were augmented at a young age for a reason, it just wasn't safe for them to be administered to an adult, Noble team only got away with summoning it back and fourth because in their DNA there was the coding to accept the process and restore them to an augmented form... Cinder didn't have that, her efforts to steal Six's power had backfired in the most extreme way possible.

"No! Cinder, please! You said you'd be there for me! Please! No! Cinder!" Emerald cried as her body gave one last spasm before finally stopping, her body looking like a twist deformed mess, no limb was pointing the way it was supposed to and no internal functions were working anymore.

Cinder Fall's life was over, taken by herself. Her corpse lay on the ground as a surge of yellow light erupted out of it, flowing back to its original owner, who was able to stand up as she pulled herself free of the now dead black goo.

"Stand down, it's over." Amber said, her face cold as the full force of her power returned to her, the rain drops around her freezing into hardened ice shards she aimed at Emerald and Mercury.

"No, Cinder, no, no, no, nonononononononononononononono..." Emerald panicked,d looking up she let her semblance unleash, something tall and black erupted into Noble teams vision, a tall white figure wearing black, looking around at the group before screaming at them, the scream reverberated inside all the present members, it shock them to their core as everyone, even Emile took a nervous step backwards as the figure dived at them, vanishing before it made contact.

When they looked around Emerald and Mercury were gone, Cinder's body lay their on the ground and Ilia sprinted towards Six, looking down at her.

"Six..." Ilia said quietly, looking at the girls face, which was scared similar to how Ambers had been before Seven had fixed her. She turned to look at Cinder. "...We did it, she'd gone, she's gone..."

Ilia pulled Six tighter, relief flowing through her as she could feel Six's heart beating as faster than it ever had in it's life. Ilia focussed in on that fact, Six was still alive and Cinder wasn't.

"We won... We won." She smiled as she pulled Six tighter.

...

 **Authors** **notes:** I know Cinders Grimm bug thing probably isn't built to steal semblances, I just figured if it can steal Maiden magic it can probably get the regular kind as well, plus this idea for killing Cinder off has been in my head since about chapter 24 when I gave Six the armor back, it seamed appropriate for her to die by something she actively chose to do, powers immensely self destructive.


	63. Chapter 63

Chapter 63: Scars

Ozpin had so far managed to have a very good day. The holidays had started and that guaranteed his students at least two weeks of piece before the vital festival started. One week after the festival started.

 _I never saw it ending like this._

Ozpin gave his chair a spin, it was something he did to help him calm down and think straight. Juvenile but he often found some of the best ideas were.

Emphasis on some of the best, defiantly not all of them though.

 _Raven was a mistake... I'm just glad her daughters better than her._

Ozpin sighed and leant back into his chair, sipping from his mug and taking a second to enjoy the view outside his window... he then spotted an airship that had until a few days ago been taking up room in Beacons vehicle bay.

"Noble Teams back." He said to himself, going to fire up the communications when they turned themselves on.

"Ozpin! Ozpin come in!" Amber cried. The urgency in her voice sent a shiver down the man in questions spine.

"Amber what's wrong? Was the mission successful!" He cried, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the desk.

"Cinder Fall is dead." Carter butted in, having clearly just taken the mic. "We have the body in storage to prove it, but that's not important, let Locasta know we need her help!"

"What's wrong who's hurt!" Ozpin gasped.

"Six! Cinder got her! Something on her face, stole her semblance, she hasn't woken up and her conditions only getting worse!" Came the frantic cry of Ilia.

"I'll call her now, she'll be ready with a stretcher when you land." Ozpin said, his brain going five hundred miles an hour as he thought up what to do next and what he knew of ambers condition.

"That's not all sir." Carter added.

"Is anyone else..."

"Nothing a med pack couldn't fix." Carter explained. "But, we may have made a deal with a couple of people..."

"What deal? And who did you make it with?" Ozpin asked.

"Why hello Professor! Good to see you again, been a while since I was expelled." Roman Torchwick said. Ozpin could just tell by the way he talked that he was grinning from ear to ear.

"Roman, What do I owe the pleasure?" Ozpin said calmly, taking a long sip from his mug as he looked down at the screen.

"Well Oz, let me tell you a tale..."

…

Five hours ago

…

The rain was still pouring down after the battle, the droplets fell from the sky and splashed down on everything, the debris of the fight were vanishing quickly, the Grimm's corpses dissolving and the blood spilt from Cinder and Romans goons was being washed away down into the probably congested drains.

"Is she okay?" Kat asked nervously, walking towards Ilia who was still holding Six.

"I think so." Ilia said, looking down at the Spartan. "She's just unconscious..."

"Well in that case I think that went very well." A voice said from behind them.

Noble Team rounded on the Speaker, surprised to see Roman Torchwick standing in front of them, Neo standing next to him, her hand gripped firmly on her umbrella.

"Whoa! Easy..." He said as every member of the group aimed there weapons at him. "I assure you I'm not here for a fight."

"Forgive me if I'm sceptical about that." Carter responded, looking at the man as he casually span his cane around.

"Well then my blue armored friend, ask yourself this: What would I gain by fighting you?" Roman asked, bringing his cane into one final spin before planting it on the ground. "And then once you're done asking that to yourself, ask this: What can you gain from listening to me?"

"What are you saying?" Ilia asked slowly, recognising the man as one of the White Fangs main dust suppliers.

"I'm saying my technicolor girl that I happen to know your side is going to run across a lot of problems when the tournament ends in three weeks, a lot of problems I can help fix." He finished with a smile as he looked at the expressions on the groups faces. "Do I have your attention?"

It was at that point that Six cried out, her eyes still shut as she let out a yell of pain before fluming over her limbs twitching as she let out low moans of pain.

"We need to get back, Roman, come with us we'll discuss this on the way back. Adam, Emile go find something to put her body in." Carter said, gesturing over to Cinders corpse.

"For my first act of help I happen to know where some body bags are kept around here." Roman said with an optimistic smile as Jorge grabbed him and Neo around the waist and dragged them back to the pelican.

…

"Okay Mr Torchwick, what do you want to offer us and why?" Ozpin inquired, looking at the screen, almost perfectly able to imagine the man's face based on the amount of times he'd been sent to his office when he attended Beacon.

"Well, I happen to know my former bosses activity's have been causing some pretty big problems for you and your side. For example ever since the Schnee mines went up in smoke I know Atlas has been struggling to arm it's army's properly, not a good thing considering the upcoming fight is it?" Roman said with a knowing smirk.

"And you believe you can help with that?" Ozpin asked.

"Oz I can help with a lot of your problems, I only ask for a few things in return." Roman said, Noble Team tensed up at this point as Ozpin took another sip of hot chocolate.

"What is it that you want then Mr Torchwick?"

"That's very simple actually, I want amnesty for me and Neo." Roman said, his voice taking on a serious tone for the first time since he started talking to all of them.

"I'm going to have discuss this with General Ironwood, most of the crimes you're wanted for are against his kingdom after all." Ozpin said simply, punctuationg his sentence with another sip of his mug.

"Very well, but I guarantee it's in his interest to listen, I happen to know where around two hundred thousand rounds of Dust bullets are kept, something you could defiantly do with given what's going on." Roman responded as the Pelican touched down.

"Bring him to my office, I'll call the General." Ozpin finished as he began to bring up James number on his scroll.

…

"Well that went about as well as I expected." Roman commented as the Pelicans ramp lowered.

Ilia and Jorge ignored him as they carried Six down the ramp towards the waiting stretcher.

The flight home had not been good for Six, she was writhing like crazy, starting to thrash and twist in the seat she'd been left in. her cries of pain had also increased in volume, the tone disturbingly loud as she cried out.

"Get her on the stretcher!" Locasta called, gesturing to Ilia and Jorge as they lowered the Spartan down. "Jorge hold her still while I strap her in."

The four of them took off down the hallway towards her office.

"What happened to her to cause the scaring?" Locasta asked, looking at the horrific injury on Six's face; it best reminded her of a red spider web, splattered around her face and leaving deep trenches that ran around her entire face.

"She was attacked by Cinder fall, some weird black goo substance exploded from her hand and griped her around the face, it was reminiscent of the creatures of Grimm." Jorge explained at top speed as Six began to struggle against the straps, crying out in agony as her body spasmed violently.

"What's wrong with her!" Ilia gasped, looking at Six as she felt her heartbeat accelerate.

"I don't know, I need to get her to the infirmiry but I don't think this attack stopped at her physical body." Locasta said as she ran ahead to push the main door open for the infirmary.

Thankfully for them the room was empty so their was no shortage of beds for Six... Assuming they could get her into one.

The second the straps were released she started to struggle with all he might, so much so that Ilia was thrown off and Jorge had to take over holding her on his own as her limbs flailed, each of her limbs trying to hit and injure anything within their reach, all of them flying and punching as she struggled.

It was when Jorge managed to pin her down in the bed that Six's screaming became both coherent and infinitely worse.

"No! Stop!" She screamed, thrashing as Ilia tried to strap one of her arms in place. "Stop it! No! Stop hurting them!"

"What's going on!" Locasta yelled, bolting back in with her equipment.

"Stop it no! Let him go! No! Carter!" Six screamed, her thrashing increasing tenfold with the three limbs that weren't stuck down.

"Six Carters fine!" Jorge yelled as he pinned her down, trying to stop her from hurting herself as she writhed on the bed.

"No! Stop it! What do you want! No! Stop it! No!" Six cried out. "No, leave her alone!"

"We need to put her out!" Locasta yelled. "Get her pinned down!"

Six wasn't making it easy for them. She struggled against everything as much as she could, she didn't want to be stopped.

"Kat! Stop it! No, get away from him! Emile! Jorge! Stop it please!" Six yelled as they managed to get her other arm strapped down, her legs now kicking frantically.

"Get those legs down!" Locasta cried as she readied her syringe.

Ilia threw herself across Six's legs, she was moving them around like crazy and Ilia then realized just how strong Six was. She should have known from the cave in but to be on the receiving end instead of behind it was a new experience Ilia begged she'd never have to feel again.

"Please stop it! Please I'll do anything, no, let me go, Ilia!" Six screamed before passing out, Locasta had managed to sedate the struggling Spartan.

"Okay, she should be fine now..." She said, looking down at the girl as her sleep became more peaceful, her scream dyeing in her throat as she slumped into the mattress.

"What did that stuff do to her?" Jorge muttered, looking down at Six and her horrifically scared face.

"I don't know... Ilia could you stay here for now?" Locasta asked, flicking her tail as she looked at the Chameleon girl. "She shouldn't be alone when she wakes up given what she was saying."

"Try to make me leave." Ilia responded, dragging visitor chair up so she could sit next to her. Reaching out she took Six's hand and held it, feeling Six's pulse dyeing down as she felt the warmth.

"I'm okay Six, I'm okay." Ilia said, preying Six could hear what she was saying.


	64. Chapter 64

Chapter 64: Why does this feel better than what we used to do?

"Sir..." Winter began, looking up at the General as the elevator to Ozpin's office wired up.

"We've been over this Winter." Ironwood responded, looking down at his unofficial second in command.

"I know, but this still feels wrong." Winter said as the door opened. Even though she knew what was coming it was still a shock to see all the people standing in the room.

Ozpin was standing looking outside the window, sipping from his mug as he slowly turned to look at his two new arrivals.

Roman Torchwick and his aid Neopolitan had taken position at Ozpins desk. With Roman slumped out in Oz's chair with Neo sitting on the desk, smirking at the General and offering him a sarcastic wave as the pair walked in.

"Ah James, so good to see you!" Roman said, getting up and vaulting over the desk so he could offer his hand to the General. (Somehow managing to make the action look lazy and effortless despite the movement.) "Been so long since you last put me away."

"I rather hoped it would be the last time I had to." Ironwood responded, looking the man right in the eye as he moved his hand over to Winter, who just looked at him and he pulled his hand back.

"Oh where would the fun in that be?" Roman responded, grinning.

"Can we stop wasting time and get to why you called us here?" Winter said coldly.

"Technically Winter I didn't call you, I called your boss." Roman pointed out.

"Can we get on with this!" A voice said from the corner, cause Winter and Ironwood to jolt. The pair was so used to robots standing around doing things they'd been ignoring the three armored figures standing in the corner keeping their eyes on Roman and Neo.

"Yes, lets." Ozpin said, nodding towards Carter as he retook his chair. "I'll cut to the chase; What can you offer us?"

"Well Ozpin my old bean, I know where we can lay our hands on two hundred thousand rounds of Dust ammo for your standard guns. I also happen to know you've been struggling to keep your army stocked up ever since the White Fang blew the Schnee dust mines." Roman said with a smirk as he plonked his butt down on Ozpin's desk.

"Is that all?" Winter asked, figuring they could probably interrogate the answers out of him without making any kind of deal.

"No it is not, outside of the unprocessed dust I can throw in on top of that I happen to know the original plan and what she intends to do." Roman continued, shooting a look at Winter that indicated he knew full well what she was thinking.

"Okay then, what do you want?" Ironwood said simply.

"Well I told Oz the main thing I want; Amnesty for myself and Neo, I would throw in the rest of my loyal crew but they were torn apart by Grimm a few hours ago so it hardly seams worth it."

"That's!" Winter began before the General held his gloved hand up.

"Whether or not you are granted that will depend on the quality of information, as a good will I will offer you one day's head start to run no matter what you say here, depending on the information given I will adjust the deal." Ironwood said, his attention focused on Roman.

"Sir!" Winter gasped, looking between the two men.

"Winter I don't like it but if he can back up his words then it will be more than worth it and anyway something tells me even if he gets what he wants they'll be another warrant within the week." Ironwood shot at Winter, stress evident in his face as he spoke.

"Make that two weeks, I've been meaning to take Neo to Frisney land, might take her for a week before I start looking for trouble." Roman said simply.

"So basically you want a weeks holiday in exchange for a ton of useful information?" Emile asked from the corner. Winter jumped as she saw the faceplate, it had a skull carved into it.

 _Are we sure this thing is friendly?_

"Pretty much, anyway, I believe we have information to trade." Roman began before someone else spoke up.

"Can we deal with that first?" Amber asked, having been standing in a darker section of the room and pointing gingerly at a body bag lying in the corner.

"Amber!" Ironwood gasped, looking at the Maiden, looking infinitely better than she had the last time he saw her.

"Yeah, I'm back." She said, smiling at the General.

"I, how... I mean..." The General stammered, looking around the room before eventually settling on Ozpin, looking for some kind of explanation.

"You can thank Six and her teams efforts for that." Ozpin said.

"And me!" A new voice blurted, apearing as an orange glowing figure right in front of the General. "Names Seven! I run the thing that fixed her... and a spaceship."

"An AI?" Ironwood asked. He knew about Seven of course; Six had mentioned her in a few of the reports she's sent him about Penny (He had to keep track of her and her well being, although the reports had slowed down somewhat in the last two weeks) But he'd never imagined her quite so... Real.

Atlas had made AI's off course, but this one was so much more than the ones who ran the CCT. She moved like a real person, her model was far more complex and her eyes and tone of voice had so much more behind them.

"You're... a lot more advanced than I expected..." He eventually finished.

"Awe, thank you!" Seven said with a grin, adjusting her Tricorn slightly before looking to Winter. "Ah, Winter, nice to see you properly, I was in my chip the last time we met."

"Yes, I never knew you'd be so... Well..."

"I know, I'm pretty awesome." She said with a grin.

"Anyway, How did you fix her? The damage to her spine was so extreme it would have been decades before we could fix it..." Ironwood inquired.

"Well that's simple, my techs from the equivalent of about five hundred trillion years ahead of yours." Seven said, then reconsidered and added: "Actually its from a about two hundred thousand years before yours, literally."

"James we'll discuss this later, lets sort out the Cinder issue, Carter you're sure she's in here?" Ozpin asked.

"Sir..." The dark blue robot answered (Although now it was obviously power armor) "... I know a dead body when I see it." He responded, walking over and unzipping the bag slightly so the General could see inside.

"What did you do to her?" Winter asked, knowing the girl was insanely dangerous, although looking at this it looked like she'd been fed through a car crusher, was she so bad she deserved that.

"Nothing." Kat said (Ironwood wondered how he'd failed to notice the robot arm he'd given her, the new hand bolted on) "She did that to herself."

"How did she break her own legs in three different places?" Ironwood asked as Carter resealed the bag.

"She attacked Six." Carter explained.

"Why isn't she here? Is she..." The General started to ask before the Skull headed figure butted in (Presumably Emile given he was the only member he didn't know)

"She's still alive, but she's in medical at the moment. See Cinder tried to steal her Semblance, unfortunately for her augmentations aren't meant to be administered to adults... Her body did not take it well." He explained, his voice sounding very happy as he spoke the last part.

"I'm sorry, if she needs more advanced help don't hesitate to call me." Ironwood said, making a note to stop by and visit her before leaving.

"We will don't worry." Carter responed before turning to Roman: "You, we need details, will you give them?"

"Why of course I will." Roman said as he pulled up a map of Vale behind him.

…

Roman talked for a good hour while Neo pointed out bits on the map with her umbrella as a make shift pointer.

The General had sent some knights out to check one of the areas suggested to see if Roman was being honest, he was only somewhat surprised to see he wasn't lying.

In the end a deal was made between the two men. After the attack on Beacon Roman and Neo would be offered a week to run if they chose to leave before the fight, they would get the amnesty if they chose to stay and fight at the battle. Not a perfect deal but Roman was somewhat surprised he was getting one at all. Him and Neo were also going to be confined to one of the Atlesian ships in the mean time, not as prisoners, but Roman couldn't be seen walking around a town where he was a wanted man and Neo wanted to stick with him, so they would be more like unwelcome guests on the ship.

It was once those deals where done they moved onto the biggest problem in the room.

Adam.

"What exactly do you want Adam?" Ironwood asked, looking at the terrorist in front of him.

"I want to kill Salem, I don't give a flying fuck over what I have to do or who I have to work with to do it." Adam explained simply. "Also I know what's in the mountain and believe me it has the potential to do a lot of damage if you don't kill it."

"We're listening." Ozpin said simply.

…

"Are you sure we made the right decision?" Winter asked, looking at Ironwood as the elevator went back down.

"If I wasn't sure then I wouldn't have made them." Ironwood responded.

"Why sir, if you don't mind..." Winter began.

"Because they had something we don't and we all benefit from keeping our end of the deal, I know its not perfect or ideal, but we don't get a choice about this so we might as well roll with it."

"This still feels wrong." Winter muttered as the elevator reached the bottom and they stepped out.

"I know, but again, we don't have a choice and Roman at least was honest about the dust, besides we need all the help we can get." Ironwood responded.

"I know sir, it's just..." Winter started to say.

"I know, I'm going to see if Noble Six is doing any better, if you want to see your sister your more than welcome." Ironwoood said, heading out towards the infirmary, before adding on: "But be back in an hour, we need to get back to our ships as soon as possible."

"Understood sir!" Winter responded, walking off to go visit Weiss.

...

 **Author's notes: Sorry, this one felt less good than some of the others, just titred and dealing with a crappy sleep schedule at the moment and doing what I can.**


	65. Chapter 65

Chapter 65: Inside the mindscape

"How long has she been like this?" Ironwood asked, looking down at the unconscious Six, her scared face having cause him to jolt when he's first seen it.

"About seven hours." Ilia muttered, looking down at the injured Spartan saddly.

"Can anything be done to help wake her up?" Ironwood inquired, looking over at Locasta as she walked past.

"Unfortunately no, I've only ever seen one other person like this and I was only trying to keep her asleep, we never actually figured out how to wake Amber up." The Nurse admitted, swishing her tail from side to side as she spoke, the frustration evident in her voice as she spoke.

"Well, I might have some idea on what we could do..." Seven said, appearing next to Ironwood.

"Then lets do it!" Ilia cried.

"Hold on, its not perfect and you wont like it." Seven said, sighing as her model sat down on the bed next to Six, moving her untouching hand down Six's long hair.

"Why, wouldn't it get her awake?" Ilia asked, looking down at the AI who shook her head.

"Well, if we built another Ostium ring I could go into her head to take out the parasite..."

"The what!?" Ilia interrupted, gasping as she looked at Six's head.

"It's not literally, well, erm... Okay, look; what was going on in Ambers head was something inside her brain, literally inside her brain, it had been put in as part of the Maiden power stealing process; its basically a prop to keep the door open so the invader can break in." Seven explained. "Its not exactly a physical thing, its like a thought she can't get out of her head and a part of it shuts down the active portions of the brain."

"Okay, so if its not actually their why do we need a ring to get it out?" Ilia asked, ignoring how Ironwood looked slightly lost.

"Because I got rid of the 'Parasite' by scanning her brain, taking it apart and reconstructing it while removing the door, I can't do that in the real world without making everything worse or killing her, without it... Well I have no idea what we could do, maybe we need a physic to go inside her head and route around her mind scape and last time I checked we don't have one of those..." Seven said before a spark of recognition appeared in Ilia's face.

"Actually... I think we do." Ilia said as a smile broke over her face.

…

Winter meanwhile was not having any good ideas, nor was she in need of them because she was outside her sisters room.

Wanting to surprise Weiss she didn't knock, she just grabbed the handle and opened the door, declaring:

"Weiss I have to come to inspect..."

The reason for the '…' was simple, she had not walked in on her sister. Nor had she walked in on her girlfriend. No what she had walked in on was Ruby's Sister and Weiss' other teammate.

And they were naked.

And on a bed.

And clearly in the middle of something.

And one of them was defiantly not happy to see her.

"ARRRGGHHH!" Blake cried, desperately rolling off the bed and falling to the ground where she was out of sight and safe from Winters gaze.

Yang (Who'd been to distracted to notice winter opening the door) saw blake scream and roll off her and looked around.

"Oh hi! You must be Winter." Yang said with a smile.

"I, yes, I..." Winter said, trying not to look at Yang as she sat up (again, not wearing anything) to look at her.

"Guessing you wanted to see Weiss?" Yang asked, looking down to her left and giggling at Blake (Who was trying to curl up as tight as she possibly could to hider herself.)

"I, yes, erm, look I apologise..." Winter said, her face bright red as she backed up.

"That's okay, it's our fault for not locking the door..." Yang began before an irate Cat girl yelled:

"It's your fault! Honestly we just came back and the next thing I noticed you were taking your clothes off!"

"Hey you could have locked the door before joining in." Yang responded with a grin before turning back to Winter. "Anyway, if you want Weiss I think she's in Vale at the moment, she's trying out Ruby's Date idea."

"Do I want to know?" Winter asked, turning to look at the wall so she had something to look at other than the blonds bare chest.

"There on a joint raid, apparently someone has cookies Ruby wants and they're working together to try and get them." Blake explained, apparently having her confidence back now Winter wasn't looking at her.

"Okay, any idea who this person is they're trying to steal from?" Winter asked, glad for any excuse to get out of this room.

"No, sorry, try asking Pyrrha, I think she gave them the information, their rooms just across ours." Yang said simply.

"Thank you, and please lock your door." Winter said as she ducked out.

Blake crawled back out from the side of the bed.

"You evil sod." She said with a small grin as she looked at Yang, who burst out into a massive grin.

"Argggghhhhh!" Winter cried as she opened the JNPR door.

…

 _You called me?_

"Yes Fin..." Ilia began before looking over at Seven. "We, erm, have a favour to ask..."

"This is frigging insane." Seven said from the side.

"I agree." Ironwood muttered, looking over at the Hunter. He did know Fin, Six had mentioned him and he'd been waiting near the hospital for Six to wake up.

 _I can do it._

"You can!" Ilia beamed, looking at Fin who nodded.

 _Yes, I can do it, not alone but I can do it._

"Wait, you need help?" Seven asked.

 _Yes._

"So, you can get yourself and someone else into Six's head?" Ironwood asked, looking at the Alien hunter.

 _No, I can get someone into Six's head, I cannot go in myself._

"I thought your kinds physic ability's were limited to mild telepathy." Seven said with intrest.

 _It was. Then Merlot happened._

"What did you do with him anyway?" Ilia asked curiously.

 _It has been solved._

"What does..." Ilia began before Fin interrupted.

 _It has been solved, anyway I need someone to go into her head. Ilia I believe your the best candidate to do this._

"Hang on!" Seven cried, looking at Fin. "Believe me! Don't go in there alone, I've been in there before and trust me its fucking creepy, you do not want to be there alone."

"Can you take anyone else into your head?" Ironwood asked, looking over at Fin.

 _Possibly. Get ready to enter._

Ilia and Ironwood looked at Fin.

"What do we do then?" Ilia asked, wondering if Fin had forgotten to tell them how they were supposed to do this whole, going into her girlfriends head thing.

 _Just hold onto my bare Lekgolo and I will do the rest._

"Okay, lets go." Ironwood set, a look of grim determination on her face.

…

"Okay, this is the only pace left for them to be." Winter said, a firm look of determination on her face as she opened the last door she had to check.

"It'll be okay, it's just your sister stealing cookies, it will be fine, nothing dad can be behind this door." She said to herself, not fully convinced.

 _The number of people I've walked in on... I mean, they were all acidents, it'll be fine, come on, I mean yes there was Blake and Yang... and Phyra and Jaune... Not that big a deal... then Coco and Velvet... Urgh I am so bad at this!_

Winter shook her head.

 _No, you can do this, your highly trained cream of the Crop Atlas special forces, you can do this, lets go!_

She grasped the handle before a thought sprang to mind.

 _Maybe I should check first, you know, just to be sure..._

Winter bent down and put her head to the lock (praying no one came around the corner to see her spying on a students dorm, the Schnee name was already in the gutter after the mines went boom, it could easily get far worse.)

"Ruby... Oh my god, I never knew..." Weiss muttered.

"Big aren't they!" Ruby responded.

"There so big!" Weiss cried.

"I know, and give them a feel" Ruby smiled.

"I don't want top, I mean they're yours..."

"They're yours as well, I mean you are my girlfriend..."

"I supose, I..."

"Are you okay Weiss?"

"Yeah, just getting myself ready, first time I've done this." Weiss responded weekly.

"It's okay, but trust me you wont regret it, I loved yours!" Ruby said.

"I, no, I cant, you were humouring me, know one wants mine."

"Are you crazy yours are great!" Ruby cired.

"No they're not..."

"Weiss Schnee I can't believe I'm hearing you say this!"

"But it's true, no one wants mine, so small and mishapen..."

"That's what makes them unique!" Ruby cried indignatly.

"But..."

"Weiss you are beautiful and so were they! Now come on!"

Winter had heard enough, she bolted away as fast as she could, she knew where she needed to go now.

…

 _Inside Six's room because no one was currently using it:_

"...Come on and try the damn cookies!" Ruby cried, looking at her girlfriend over the plate they'd stolen back.

"Okay, I still say mine couldn't compare..." Weiss muttered, thinking back to the set she'd tried to bake for Ruby.

"They were delicious thank you very much, now eat the cookies!"

…

Meanwhile back in the infirmary Ilia and Ironwood had just begun the process of entering Six's head when they were interrupted.

"Hold on!" Locasta called from the side.

 _You may go with them._

"Wait what?" Ilia asked as the Nurse got near them.

"I am this schools Nurse and she is my patient, I am going to help her." She said simply as the world dissolved around them.

When it eventually came back... it...

"Holy shit!" Ilia gasped. The place they were now in best reminded her of a dust mine which had recently caved in. The smoke was thick in the air and the sky almost seamed red. Most of the terrain looked burnt and was lacking any life in the slightest.

Unfortunately, while it was lacking life it wasn't lacking death to put it unsubtlety.

Ironwood recognised a battlefield when he saw one and he could tell this must have been a particularly fierce one.

"Where are we?" Locasta asked as her tail swished from side to side as she tried to ignore the Alien corpse with a purple bloody stump instead of a head that was lying nearby.

"I, I think..." Ilia muttered, looking around. "I think we're on Reach."

"Six's home?" Ironwood asked, looking around at the blasted hellscape around them.

"Six came from here!" Locasta gasped, suddenly understanding exactly how Six's body ended up looking like it did.

"I think so..." Ilia muttered, looking around. "It certainly matches how Six described it, but I have no idea were she is..."

"Well we better find her soon, I don't want to stay here any longer than we have to." Ironwood muttered as the trio advanced, wondering exactly what they'd find here.

...

 **Authors notes:** Okay got some sleep now! Hopefully feeling better.

Wasn't super sure about this idea but I need a way to wake Six up and well, this seamed like fun, so yeah; hope its not to silly an idea.


	66. Chapter 66

Chapter 66: Who are you?

The world around the trio as they walked was not pleasant. The whole thing was burnt and wrecked, the occasional noise of gunfire sounding out form somewhere far away from them.

"This place gives me the creeps..." Ilia muttered as a round of plasma fire sounded off in the background.

"It's not pleasant no." Ironwood added. He'd seen worse but he knew a losing battle when he saw one and this one looked pretty lost.

It was as they walked that Ironwood notice something. A small shape curled up in the rubble of a destroyed building. Slowly he walked over to it and it jerked awake, panicking when it saw him and scrabbling back.

The figure was a young girl, she barley looked older than five, her dull purple hair and dress were both heavily damaged and coated in dirt. He eyes were big as she looked at the three of them, raising her hands to cover her face.

"It's okay, I wont hurt you." Ironwood said as the other two noticed what he was doing and saw the girl.

The girl didn't look convinced, she moved back and flattened herself against the wall, her frail body plastered as close to the back as she could.

"It's okay, my name is James Ironwood, what's yours?" He asked, doing his best to smile warmly at the girl.

"Ironwood..." She muttered in a whisper almost to quite to hear.

"That's right, James Ironwood." He said, offering the girl his hand. "We're looking for someone called Noble Six, do you know her?"

The girl nodded, pealing herself off the wall and slowly taking a step forward.

"Can you take us to her?" Ilia asked, looking at the girl. She shook her head.

"Scared..." She muttered, bringing her arms close as she looked around.

"It's okay, your safe with us." Locasta smiled.

The girl did not look convinced as she looked at the group.

"No... If we..." She muttered, trailing off and kicking a small rock on the ground slightly.

"If we what?" Ironwood asked. When the girl didn't answer he added: "It's okay, you can trust us."

"Ironwood..." She muttered, looking at him, something sparked in her eyes and she darted forward, wrapping her arms around his leg and saying: "Need help, he knows were she is..."

"Who knows!" Ilia gasped, looking at the girl. "Please it's important!"

"I'd say you're more important." A new (familiar) voice spoke from behind them. The four of them whirled around to look at the speaker.

"Miss Adel?" Locasta asked in amazement as she looked at Coco.

Except, was it? The figure looked like her and was defiantly dressed like her. But the last time any of them checked Coco's hair was brown with an orange streak in it, not purple. Also something was slightly off about her build and hight. Strangely she also wasn't wearing heals.

"Kinda!" She said with a cheerful smile as she looked at the group. "Call me Koko, and I see you found Beth, good on you I wondered where she got to when that stupid Grimm showed up."

"Koko..." The girl (Apparently called Beth) muttered as she looked up at her happily.

"That's my name don't wear it out!" Koko exclaimed, looking to the group. "Anyway, Beth's right; he'll help out a lot if we find him, so lets go look for him!"

"Okay that sounds good... _Eppp!_ " Ilia gasped as Koko walked up to her and pulled her into a tight hug.

"Argh! You're so cute! I am super jealous of Six!" Koko cried as she squeezed the Chameleon girl tighter.

"Koko..." Beth muttered quitley.

"But!" Koko gasped, acting like Beth had yelled at her as opposed to quietly muttering it.

"No." Beth said. Koko's eyes darted from side to side, she wanted to say something,s he watned to yell, but she gave in let go.

"Fffiiiiiiiinnnnnnnneeee!" She whined as she let go, taking Ilia's hand instead. "But I'm keeping the hand, now come on lets go find him!"

"Hey, wait!" Ilia gasped as she was dragged off.

The rest of the group looked down at Beth who shook her head.

"Sorry about her... She was locked away for quite a while, she's a bit, eager..." Beth muttered as she set of after Koko (after offering her hand to Ironwood to take)

…

Meanwhile back in vale Winter was dealing with what she'd heard her little Sister and her Girlfriend doing (Not that she was correct in what the two was doing, but after the day she'd had you could forgive her for getting it wrong)

How was she dealing you may ask? Well she'd elected to try a method implemented by Qrow Branwen when it got to much for him to bare.

She was drunk.

She wasn't sure how many she'd had, she also didn't care, she could afford it and she needed this.

"Miss, perhaps you should stop..." Junior slowly said from behind the bar. "...This is your..."

"I don't care how many I've had!" She cried, red in the face as she slammed her empty glass down on the bar. "I need more! Another!"

"Okay then." Junior responded with a shrug. It wasn't his job to watch out for the Schnee family's health and he found Atlas specialists did less digging around when they were drunk.

Winter grabbed the drink and tried to gulp it down in one go, sadly she wasn't used to doing things like that and royally fucked it up. Choking and spluttering as she tried to get air into her lungs.

"You know you're doing that wrong Ice Queen." A new voice said from her right, or was it left, she wasn't sure at this point.

"Qrow..." Winter muttered, looking up at him.

"Qrow good day!" Junior said with a rare smile on his face, Qrow always spent lots and more to the point, didn't give a shit what he got up to in his club. "Your usual?"

"Yup." Qrow responded, flopping down onto the seat next to Winter. "So what's got you in this state?"

"My Sister and your niece..." She muttered darkly as she looked at Qrow gulp down his drink.

"What they do this time?" Qrow asked, falling off his seat when Winter exploded, yelling:

"Boobies! That's what they were doing! Boobies! Touching and squeezing there... Boobies!" Winter yelled, almost falling off her seat as she yelled.

"That's my girl... Wait, with your sister! A Schnee!" He cried, looking up at Winter in horror.

"Whroo else would schee be!" Winter cried drunkenly as she grabbed Qrows drink and gulped it down.

"She had one job! One job! Don't trust a Schnee! I told her that! Don't trust a Schnee! Junior, I need shots, lots of them, get some for the lady as well!" Qrow cried as he pulled himself back onto his stall.

"Kay." Junior said, looking at the stores behind his bar and wondering if he was going to need more alcohol.

…

"So who are we looking for?" Locasta asked, looking around at the terrain and wishing there were less dead bodies all over the place.

"Trust me you'll know him when you see him!" Koko responded, looking around. "And he should be around where its loudest and trust me, we're pretty close."

It was true, the noise of gunfire was getting louder and louder the closer they got, as was the sound of aliens crying out in pain and yelling various battle cry's.

"Okay, erm, can you please let go of my hand?" Ilia asked, Koko had been dragging her for the last half an hour and she really was struggling to keep up.

"Huh? Oh, okay." Koko said, looking slightly hurt as she let go of Ilia's hand. "Sorry, just, urgh you will not believe how long I was shut down for."

"Shut down?" Locasta asked, looking at the girl in confusion.

"Their were a bunch of scary ONI guys walking around before, well, before Remnant." Koko explained. "Man I am happy to see the back of them."

"Okay, not to be rude or anything, but erm, who are you people?" Locasta asked, looking around at Beth and Koko.

"What do you mean?" Koko said with her head titled as she looked at the Nurse.

"I mean, we're inside Noble Six's head, why are we finding other people and how did a man get inside? I mean, we're apparently looking from him and, well! I can't be the only one who's surprised here!" Locasta gasped as she looked around, pointing at the two (Beth retreated behind Ironwoods legs when the finger was pointed at her)

"I know, its confusing isn't it?" A new voice said.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Locasta gasped in frustration as she looked around at Weiss (Who seamed to have been tinted purple.) Who had climbed over the cliff behind them (She like Koko was also wearing flats instead of her normal heals)

"Welcome to you too." The Weiss clone said dully. "Look, we're... We are Six, just, not... All of her?"

"What does that mean!?" Locasta gasped, looking at the girl in anger.

"Well you see..." Weiss began before being interrupted by a Brute getting flung across the ground and crashing down in the middle of the conversation.

"Ah, Found him!" Koko cried cheerfully, looking in the direction the Brute had come from.

"Found who!?" Locasta yelled as a figure walked out of the dust.

He was tall, extremely tall; comparable to Jorge in height, possibly even taller it was hard to tell. His muscles rippled from underneath his dull green armor. He stared at the group from behind his golden visor. As he walked towards them Koko grinned and introduced them.

"Guys, meet John 117, better known as the Master Chief."

 **...**

Authors notes: I am so sorry thsi was late! Fanfiction bugged out and I couldn't upload anything, sorry for the longer wait for a comparatively shorter chapter.


	67. Chapter 67

Chapter 67: 117

The groups reaction to seeing the Master Chief was interesting. The team from the real world took a step backwards from the massive man.

Koko just scowled at him.

Not Weiss rolled her eyes and muttered: "No subtlety what's so ever."

Beth had the strangest reaction to him. She looked up at him and gasped in terror, sprinting away as fast as she could and darting behind Ironwoods legs and clinging to them as tight as she could.

"Beth are you okay!?" Ilia gasped, bending down to console the girl.

"I'm sorry if I scared you." The man said, looking down at Beth. She still stayed as far away from him as she could and the shuddering didn't stop.

"So you're the guy we were looking for?" Locasta asked, looking at Master Chief, noting that no normal human should have been that tall or broad.

"That depends, what did you want from me?" He asked calmly, his voice having a bizarrely calming effect despite its deep nature.

"We need some help killing a Grimm that's stuck in here and messing everything up." Ilia explained. "We need to wake Six up, please help us! **Koko get off me!** "

"I'm sorry!" Koko cried, her arms now wrapped fully around Ilia as she lifted the girl into the air. "But you were so cute and Argh come here!"

"Control yourself soldier." The Master Chief said dully as he looked over at Koko, who saw what she was doing and let Ilia go. (Even if it was clear she'd much rather keep hugging Ilia)

"Okay so we find that Grimm now?" Locasta asked, looking around and not seeing much to indicate one was nearby.

"Well that's defiantly the next step." Not Weiss commented. "Although we might want to get prepared properly, with the exception of Chief here none of us are armed."

"Where are we going to find weapons around here?" Locasta asked, looking around at the blasted hell scape.

The Master Chief responded by bending down and pulling a Plasma rifle off the ground and throwing it to Locasta,

"Oh." She said in disbelief as she looked down at the weapon, turning it over in her hands and figuring out how to work it.

"Be careful, it gets hot." Beth said in a very small voice before catching the Chiefs eye and pulling herself tighter to Ironwoods legs.

"Okay lets find some more weapons, Beth are you okay?" Ironwood asked, looking down at the girl who shook her head violently and held his legs even tighter.

"Are you scared of something?" Ilia asked quietly.

"I..." She said, looking pointedly away from everyone before shaking her head. "No... I'm not."

"Are you sure?" Ilia asked as she looked down at the girl, who nodded slowly.

"Okay, lets find some weapons." Ironwood declared, looking around for something to use.

…

"Okay we all armed?" Ilia asked, looking around at the group and armed with a Battle rifle.

"Yup." Koko said, a familiar looking chain gun in her hand (it couldn't change into a hand bag but Jorge did fine with it)

"Yes I believe I have something that will work." Not Weiss said, holding up the Energy sword she'd found.

"Yes." Ironwood said, a M6G PDWS (Better known to everyone else as a Magnum) in his hands. (Six had mentioned how much kick they had, even if she was against them because of the insane kickback that he was sure he could handle)

"You know I am, but I'm still not sure we should be trying to use alien weaponry we have no training with." Locasta said.

"Aim then pull the trigger, you'll manage." Chief said simply as he swapped the clip out on his Assault rifle.

"Okay, do you have any idea where this Grimm is?" Ironwood asked, looking at Chief as he spoke.

"Oh we all know where he is." Koko said from the side.

"Yeah, we've been staying as far away from him as possible." Not Weiss explained. "Trust me he isn't exactly subtle."

"Okay, so, where do we go?" Ilia asked impatiently.

"Three K that way." Chief said, pointing at a location over his shoulder that was currently shrouded in smoke.

"Oh goodie, another walk where I'm not aloud to touch Ilia." Koko muttered darkly.

"For fucks sake Koko." Not Weiss groaned a she scowled at the beret wearing girl.

"Well sorry if my Ilia got dragged off somewhere!" Koko yelled in anger as she rounded on Not Weiss.

"Your Ilia?" Actual Ilia asked, looking at Koko in confusion.

"Yes, I had an Ilia." Koko explained, looking at the ground slightly. "She both was and wasn't you."

"How does that work, why are people even in here! This is Six's mind, shouldn't it just be Six up here?" Locasta cried, looking around and still eager for an answer on how this place worked.

"Well we're not 'here' going inside someone's head isn't technically doable, this is more of a representation off Six's psyche Fin is letting you interact with." Not Weiss explained. "You're interaction is still going to effect things, just not in a direct sense... Look its complicated. Basically we're Six's way of making it easier for you, different bits of her broken down so we can talk and interact with you to help solve the problem, I'm intelligence with Kat unavailable, Koko's basically Six's sex drive, as well as some other emotions..."

"I'm also awesome!" Koko called, then went back to being sad.

"Yes, anyway; Ilia, our Ilia." Not Weiss clarified. "She wasn't exactly part of Six's mental state, she was more of a representation of everything she wanted to keep safe, not that she doesn't think you can't take care of yourself of course." She added looking over at Ilia. "She knows you can, doesn't mean she's not worried about you, she's worried about lots of people."

"Yeah can I just say it was weird before she found Noble Team or Ilia when she kept changing forms." Koko added from the side. "First it was all of them, then it was Carter and Kat, then we got Jorge then it just swapped between Ilia and Emile until she finally settled, it was so nice when that happened by the way."

"Okay that makes sense, but where is she? If Six wants to keep her safe why isn't she here?" Ironwood asked.

"Same reason Noble Team isn't here, they got dragged off by the Grimm." Master Chief explained.

"Yeah why haven't you saved them yet Mr Chuffy?" Koko asked, turning to scowl at him. "I mean, you're the big bad boss who used to rule around here! Why the hell didn't you save them?"

"It was on the 'to do' list." Chief scowled. His fists clenched as he looked at Koko.

"Oh Bullcrap!" She yelled in response. "You were the main one in charge! Why the hell didn't you save them then! Why didn't you save her!? Why are they having to do this crap Mr High and Mighty!"

"I did everything I could!" Chief yelled, his body flashing out and glitching before he returned to his normal state.

"Did you? Did you really, are you sure about that Chuffy!?" Koko cried in response.

"Yes!" He yelled, once again flickering and spazing out.

"Then why are they gone 'Mr perfect Spartan!' Answer me that you sack of shit!"

"Koko stop!" Not Weiss yelled.

"Let her yell." Beth muttered quietly, so quietly in fact no one heard it.

"No Weiss, no, not this time! I ain't holding my tongue this time!" Koko yelled, rounding on Not Weiss before turning back to the Master Chief. "Always it was you! Always it was fucking you! Do this! One One Seven has done this today! One One Seven just achieved this! He just killed this many people! Join us and be like him! Avenge them like he would! Fight like he would! Be like him!"

The Master Chief didn't react, he just looked at her as she seethed in anger and stared directly at his visor.

"You were the high bar, the one to equal, the Hyper lethal Master Chief, the best, of the Spartans; The best of the best. Everyone wanted another you 'Be the next you' Be the next Mr Fucking Chuffy, you'll save humanity, you'll help the world... Well guess what asshole! She did that! She was you! She reached your level, she did everything she had to, she was brutal, she got people hurt, she fought like a demon because at her core she wanted to help people! Like you did!"

Tears were falling down Koko's face now and the Chief stayed perfectly still.

"And she reached it, oh how she fucking reached it!" Koko spat as she looked up at the Chief "A Spartan Three who reached your level. Do you have any idea how rare that is!? No Spartan Three can match you guys! None of them! You guys were too good, better augmented, better trained, better armed... Better everything!"

"And she reached your level. She did her best and met the challenge, everyday wanting to be more like you, the man in the armor who could turn an entire battle by himself, every week something new came in, some new incredible feet you'd done. And she reached your level. She was ready to save the fucking human race... And what happened? After every single thing she did, after every effort she put in?"

The Master Chief still didn't answer, he just stood their still as a rock.

"Answer me!" Koko yelled at the immobile Spartan two.

"She did her Duty." Chief responded. But it didn't sound right, it wasn't like it was him talking. It sounded more like a speach made out of recordings stitched together to Frankenstein a response.

"Her Duty, her fucking 'Duty' Hey Ilia why don't you tell him what her 'Duty' was? I know she's told you!" Koko cried, pointing dramatically at Ilia who shrank a little as she went fully black, trying to avoid being seen.

"She, she said she was an assassin." Ilia eventually forced out. "She, she was forced to work as an assassin."

"That..." Koko said, pointing at the Chief. "That was her duty. That was what she forced herself to do, over an over again she did what she thought was her duty. It wasn't what she signed up for, but it was what she was told to do; and after all those years that was all that was left in her head. Do what your told. Always what she was told. That was all she could do, that was all her brain could comprehend by that point, all because she wanted to be you. That's what was promised to her: You. Being you. Being the best of the best."

"Reach." Chief responded simply.

"Yes." Not Weiss said, butting her way in between Koko and the Master Chief. "Reach, the one time Six can actively remember being you, the one time where she got to feel like she was making a difference and doing the right thing."

"Exactly." Koko growled. "She thought it was going to be her final act, dyeing on a hell blasted world, she thought that was going to be her final act, the last time she would get any chance to do the right thing. She did it, she saved fifteen hundred people as her last act, finally it felt like she was the Spartan she always wanted to be. All it cost her was everyone she cared about."

"She found them again." Chief pointed out.

"I know she fucking found them! But she shouldn't have had to find them! She never should have lost them in the first place! She shouldn't have had to die to be what she was promised!" Koko screamed.

"That was ONI who lied to her." Beth muttered darkly.

"They used me to lie to her." Chief added darkly, scowling at Koko.

"I know they did!" Koko bellowed. "I know they used you! I know it's not your fucking fault! But it doesn't change the fact she can't stop hating you! Hating herself!"

"I know." The Chief said, bending down so he was on eye level with her.

"No you don't, The Master Chief is still out fighting, saving humanity! And now she's here on Remnant, doing what she can and being who she always wanted, with people she likes and cares about. All you are is..."

"Desire." Not Weiss said, looking at him. "A desire she can't fill anymore."

"What do you mean!?" Ilia cried, looking at Not Weiss.

"Her Semblance is gone, she vanished Five hours forty three minutes and ten seconds ago." Not Weiss explained. "Cinder took it and it hasn't come back, she can't go back to being a Spartan, she's stuck as a civilian, she's stuck as a Human. She can't be more than that, she can't be the invincible Master Chief, she can't be you anymore."

"She doesn't need me." The Chief said simply.

"Yes she does! That's the fucking problem!" Koko yelled.

"She doesn't realise it, not consciously anyway. But she knows she's not who she used to be, she knows it's gone, she knew what Cinder was looking for and she knows she lost the fight to keep it." Not Weiss added.

"Hang on... Whys the anger directed at you?" Ilia asked, looking at Chief with confusion on her face.

"I thought my rant would have made that pretty frigging clear." Koko muttered darkly.

"But, it wasn't, it was more aimed at this 'ONI' thing form what you said" Ilia explained.

"Yes, it sounds like they used him to manipulate her, it doesn't sound like he even knew about it." Ironwood added. "Noble Six never actually saw him did she?"

"No she didn't." Not Weiss admitted. "She saw pictures and everything, but the closest she came to actually seeing it was out of the corner of her eye, one of the screens in Sword base, she saw him being assigned to the Pillar of Autumn, she doesn't know this obviously, it was a small detail she probably missed, but she did see it."

"So, she saved his life?" Locasta asked, looking over at Six's brain people.

"Yes." Koko growled. "Because that's what she really wanted to do, save the person who..."

"He didn't." Not Weiss butted in. "ONI did."

"But he! I, no..." Koko sighed. "I know, I know."

"She wanted to help people, she wanted to save everyone she could." Not Weiss said. "And ONI used that against her, her hatred is... She knows it was wrong, look we cant solve this split up."

"Like hell we can't!" Coco cried. "Lets do this, I can yell at him all day!"

"Well you might not want to because the Grimm's inside there." Chief said, pointing at the dry dock in front of them.

Ilia didn't know much about Reach, but she knew the Grimm web covering it was not meant to be there. The black strands coated everything, weaving in and out of doors and rails, coating everything as smaller Grimm walked around and snarled at each other.

"We're so fucked." Koko said darkly as she looked down.

"We can do this." Ironwood said, looking at the base.

"We don't have a choice." Ilia said as she readied her Battle Rifle, putting her hand on a nearby railing and getting ready to jump in.

 _I'm going to save you Six, no matter what happens._

 ** _..._**

 _ **Authors notes: Some of you may be noticing this is my second update in six hours... What can I say? inspiration struck and I still felt bad about 66 being late, even if it wasn't my fault, I really wanted to write this chapter so I did.**_


	68. Chapter 68

Chapter 68: 6

Ilia only slightly regretted diving head first into an arena full of Grimm. She was thankful everyone else quickly followed her and helped fight the smaller Grimm.

They moved forward with an almost brutal efficiency. No one was in the mood to play about or dither. They shot an almost insane amount of bullets into the creatures and soon they were at the building. Allegedly it was a dry dock with a ship docked.

"That's the Pillar of Autumn?" Ilia asked, looking up the cruiser, its name written along the side of the octagonal ship.

"Yes." Not Weiss explained. "Before Cinder got in it was above Vale in here."

"Why?" Ironwood asked, although given what he'd learnt he could suspect what the reason was.

"She was happy over all. Vale and the Autumn were the main two things that she was happy about." Koko sumarised. "Look lets focus in on the Grimm, it's about to get rough."

"How rough?" Locasta asked, wondering if structures inside someone's head needed medical treatment.

"Well, erm, you might not want to look over there." Koko said dully, pointing behind her at something shadowy slumped against the wall.

The problem with saying things like that is the first thing anyone does is look over at the thing the speaker is pointing at, the have to other wise they don't know where not to look, by looking where their not meant to look.

And what was it Koko didn't want them to see?

Not pleasant was the answer to that.

"Who where they?" Ilia asked as she looked at the body.

"That **Was** Kurt-051." Not Weiss explained. "He's probably the closest thing to a father figure she had before... Never mind. Anyway, he basically threw himself at the Grimm when it broke in, tried t stop it from dragging Mjolnir off."

"It ripped his head off?" Locasta asked, looking down at the headless body.

"More like ate it." Koko said, a scowl on her face as she looked at the body. "On the plus side once we get rid of the Grimm this place can reset and he will be less... Gonna say broken."

"You can probably say dead here." The Master Chief said dully. "They've probably seen dead bodies before."

"Doesn't mean it's pleasant." Ilia muttered, turning away from the headless Spartan on the ground.

"Well get over it. It gets worse the further in we get." Chief said as he set off again, moving further into the facility.

The others looked at each other.

"Beth are you okay?" Ironwood asked. The girl had walked towards the dead body and was looking at it sadly.

"Yes." She said in a tone that which suggested she more on the verge of tears rather than fine. But they decided not to pressure her about it, as a general rule if someone had a splinter in their arm you didn't push it in more and if someone looked disturbed by something you didn't keep talking to them about it.

The group set off again, trying to ignore the bodies scattered around, and the disturbingly familiar faces on some of them.

"Just keep going, just keep going, for her." Ilia muttered to her self repeatedly as they ran, following the loud sound of the Master Chiefs boots hitting the ground, at least until they stopped sounding off.

"Okay, she's in here." Chief said, stopping outside one of the doors and gesturing towards it. "Ilia don't do anything stupid."

"Okay." She said firmly, looking at the door and getting ready to run through it.

"No, you don't get it, please don't do anything stupid." Koko said, her voice deadly serious. "It's really not pleasant and you're likely to do something rash."

"I wont..." Ilia said, wondering what could be so bad.

"You don't understand, Six was screaming because of what was happening to her on the other side of that door." Not Weiss explained.

"Then lets get her out of there!" Ilia yelled, trying to barge past the Cheif who held the girl back.

"This is the exact opposite of not doing anything stupid." He said dully as he looked down at the girl.

"We can't leave her in there! We need to get her out as soon as possible!" Ilia yelled. "If what's inside there is what was causing her to scream in the real world then we need to get her out of there as soon as possible!"

"You're not wrong, but we don't do it like that." Master Chief said simply. "Listen up, I'm going in first, try and get her out while I distract her, you understand."

Everyone else nodded.

"Okay, wait thirty seconds then head in." He said simply as he forced the doors open and ran inside.

The other six people waited before darting in.

"Were is she?" Ilia hissed as she sprinted forward before getting caught up in something. "Argh! The hell..." She gasped as she looked around.

She was caught up in some black goopy strands her body was now caught up in it.

"I don't know, looks like a web of some kind..." Locasta muttered as she looked around at the black strands.

"Get her out." Ironwood said simply as he pulled Ilia free.

"What kind of Grimm made that stuff?" Ilia gasped as Ironwood pulled her free.

"The kind Chuffy over theirs distracting, now come on and please stay quite." Not Weiss said, looking around, specifically up at the ceiling.

"Well that's helpful." Ilia muttered darkly as they moved forward.

The room they'd found themselves in was large and circular; Roughly forty meters across, with a large tower sprouting out of it's centre and aiming towards the impressively high ceiling. Everything was coated in more of the Grimm's webs, sticking to every surface possible and making moving around towards Six extremely hard.

"Okay I see her." Not Weiss said, pointing up to very near the ceiling of the room.

"Okay, where is she, I can't see her..." Ilia began before her hand snapped over her mouth to stop her from gasping in shock.

Six was restrained in the web stuff, her head was forced looking forward even if her eyes were shut and most of her limbs were spread out, held in place by the Grimm's webbing. Her clothes also looked ripped apart and she was revealing quite a lot of her body that was normally hidden from view.

Sadly for Ilia that doesn't mean what it sounds like. The bits she was showing were not meant to be seen by literally anyone, for example, her internal organs.

Six's torso had a gaping hole in it. Nothing was hanging out, nor was there blood, it was just a slightly jagged hole through which you could see her internals if you looked at it.

"Oh my..." Ilia gasped as she looked at her partner, in desperation she turned to Koko and begged "Is she..."

"She's still alive, this is her head, she's hurt but she's fine in the real world, but we need to get her out of there before she can get the Grimm that did that out of her head. follow me." She said, gesturing towards the ladder they'd been heading towards. "You lot watch our back."

"Why would it do that to her?" Ilia asked, unable to take her eyes of what was left of Six as they climbed the ladder.

"Cinder stole Six's semblance, it's a part of her soul; she did rip a part of her out." Not Weiss explained from behind Ilia on the ladder.

"Is she missing part of her soul!" Ilia gasped as she turned to look at Not Weiss.

"No she'll be fine once we get her away and that Grimm out of her head, A semblance and Aura is the manifestation of ones Soul, Cinder took what lets her manifest it, tearing her apart in the process, thing is so long as the persons body's still alive the soul should be fine, so it should heal by itself, I imagine its taking so long because the Grimm keeps hurting it." She explained.

"But, the Grimm's not there." Ilia pointed out as an explosion sounded in the background. "The Chiefs dealing with it."

"There's more than one way to damage the soul." Koko explained before she reached the top of the ladder and shuddered as she looked over, before looking down awkwardly at Ilia. "Look, its not pleasant up here..."

"My girlfriend has a hole in her gutt's, I don't care what's up here, I'm getting her out." Ilia said, her eyes going rock hard as she looked up at Koko.

"Okay, don't say I didn't warn you." Koko muttered as she pulled herself out, allowing Ilia to scramble out.

With everything Ilia had seen inside Six's head this was probably the worst bit.

Slumped around the room in places Six would have had to look at if she was awake were the bodies of Noble team.

They didn't have any injury's, most of them were missing there helmets exposing faces that where all contorted in pain as they lay on the ground. Ilia crept towards Six, trying not to look to hard at Noble teams bodies, until she tripped over something lying on the floor.

Ilia knew she shouldn't have screamed when she saw what she'd tripped over, she knew she should have stayed quite, but she couldn't help it, seeing your own body dead on the ground was not something most people wanted to see.

She cried out, it was loud too loud.

The explosions had long ago stopped and at this point Ilia got to see why.

The floor they were standing on was made of a reinforced glass stretching across the area. And the Grimm burst through it with a massive crash.

Ilia had never seen a Grimm like this before.

It was a spider, a massive ten foot wide Spider with none of the usual weakness the base animal, standing on Twelve long jagged legs, its head looked almost to big to fit on as it hung down low with far too many large jagged teeth for to fit inside his mouth. Its mouth had its usual mandibles, except they weren't, they were more like Praying Mantis arms, except with more spikes and large jagged looking spikes.

The worst part of it though was what was growing out of it's many eyed head. It was the torso of a woman, a woman who should have been dead at this point. It wasn't exactly like her, her skin was jet black and far to skinny, ribs basically showing through its skin and they yellow eyes were far more primal than the regular head, her previously black hair was a burnt red colour now.

Cinder Fall was growing out of this monstrous Grimm creature and in her right hand was the neck of a dull green armored Spartan II.

"Oh poor Chief, were you trying to distract me from these people. Awe... That's adorable." The monster said with a smirk before throwing him down onto the floor and driving one of her legs into the ground through him. Smashing through his armor and guts with little difficulty.

"You see that darlings? You aren't beating me, you are never going to get rid of me." Cinder then turned to look at the group in more detail and saw who was standing there.

"My, my... Another Ilia." The figure said, scrambling towards the Chameleon girl who raised her gun and open fired on the monster as it's legs scuttled across the ground. (Although Ilias bullets failed to do anything to the Grimm)

"No, stop it..." Six's torso less body murmured, trying to move but being unable to do anything more than wriggle around before slumping down again, seaming to give up.

"Six it's me!" Ilia cried as she looked over at her. Six didn't look up.

"Not again, not again, I don't want to see this happen again..." She muttered so quietly it was almost inaudible over the Cinder Spiders legs moving.

"Six I'm really her!" Ilia yelled, but the Spartan didn't look up. "What the hell is wrong with you!"

"It's not your fault." The Cinder spider said with a cruel smile as it's front legs grabbed Ilia and threw her into the air. Pinning her down so hard the spikes on the legs punched holes in the glass floor they were standing on. "She's just seen her friends taste my sting a few too many times, poor dear can't think about it anymore."

"Six please!" Ilia yelled as Koko and Not Weiss started firing on the Grimm, trying to throw it off.

The Cinder Grimm just laughed as she looked at them.

"Oh my, this is too, you think that'll work? You think that'll do anything?" She laughed uncontrollably as she looked at the two. "I have control of this girls head, you're nothing in here, none of you can do anything to hurt me."

She then dived at Koko and drove one of her legs right through the girl, tossing her at Not Weiss, who dived out of the way and gasped as she saw Koko's body hit the wall and slide to the ground with a dull thump.

"No... I can't, we can't beat her..." Not Weiss said, falling to the ground and circling up.

"Awe, it appears dear Sixy lost her confidence and a couple of other things come to think of it." The Grimm Cinder said, giggling as Six's arms disintegrated and what was left of her body fell to the ground.

"Ha! Oh I love this, lets see, what would finally break her, well first of all." She smiled as she scuttled over to Not Weiss as she lay on the ground, spearing her like a marshmallow and throwing her into the air, catching her in the spiders horiphic mouth and crunching down on it in an instant. Snapping the bones in the girl as Six's right leg joined most of her torso and limbs.

"Ha! Just one little thing left and I think she'll break and there's only one last one to break." Cinder said, hovering her leg over Ilia's body, getting ready to bring it down on her.

"Ilia get ready!" Ironwood yelled from the ladder, pulling his magnum out and blasting the glass flooring apart. It may have been reinforced but it easily shattered under the pistols insane power.

Everyone on the platform fell, Six's body being hung from her one remaining leg and head as the others fell.

The Cinder Spiders legs flailed until they managed to get a foot holding on the Web.

Ilia's fall was a lot less pleasant. She was falling to fast and unable to grab onto any of the webbing until she was a few feet of the ground. Her velocity pulled her further and the web snapped of one wall and she hit the metal flooring at almost top speed. Smashing the ground which shattered more easily than the glass had and left nothing but a white void to see beneath it.

"What the hell is going on!" Ilia cried as she hung above the white void.

"Six's mind isn't exactly doing great!" Locasta called as she hung onto the ladder (if she'd been a few rungs lower she probably would have fallen into the void herself) "I imagine it can't hold together very well anymore."

"Ilia, get to Six, we'll distract this thing!" Ironwood yelled, pulling the pistol out and firing on beast who laughed them off and dived at the man, who dived out of the way and grabbed onto a strand of webbing.

"Ilia get climbing!" Locasta yelled as she started to fire on the Cinder Grimm thing.

Ilia nodded and began to scramble up the vines, taking full advantage of her advanced acrobatics and climbing skills to navigate her way up the tower.

"Oh no you don't!" Cinder yelled, using one of her many legs to sever the strand Ilia was trying to climb, the Chameleon girl dived from it and grasped another one.

"Why aren't these things doing anything!?" Locasta cried as she fired off a direct hit on Cinders head, which did nothing.

"You and your pathetic constructs are a part of Six's head, I control that head, and once you're gone nothing is going to stop me!" The Grimm yelled, diving towards Locasta and Ironwood.

…

Ilia was still climbing, taking advantage of Cinders distraction to climb towards Six.

"Six!" She yelled, but the girl didn't even look up at this point, she just existed, hanging there, nearly all her constructs were gone, her mind had basically nothing left at this point.

"Six please it's me!" Ilia yelled, diving forwards and pulling Six up onto what was left of the balcony, turning the girl over and looking down at her.

Six... Six really wasn't there anymore. Her eyes were dull and didn't seam to reflect anything anymore. Most of her hair was gone and most of her limbs were gone, only one of her legs remained.

She didn't react as Ilia shook her violently, she just lay their, dull and unreasoning.

"Dammit Six do something!" Ilia yelled.

"She can't." A small voice said from the shadows near Ilia.

"I, what do you mean?" Ilia gasped, looking at the speaker as she walked out.

"Theirs nothing left of her, only me..." Beth said as she walked out and bent down near Six.

"Who are you? Koko seamed to be her emotions and Not Weiss was here intelligence, who even are you!?" Ilia asked as Beth bent down next to her.

"Noble Six." Beth said as she tried to shake the girl awake. "Wake up girl!"

"No, which part of her." Ilia added. Beth was about to explain when Ironwood and Locasta yelled out.

Cinder had driven her legs into them, she smiled and pulled them out, looking at the hole that wasn't there.

"What?" She asked confusedly, looking down at the intact torso.

"Huh..." What was left of Six asked, her eyes glowing as she looked over at them. "How did they..."

"No!" The Cinder Grimm yelled, stabbing them over and over again as nothing happened, their bodies staying un-broken.

"That's impossible!" She screamed, stabbing them over and over again.

"Going into someone's head isn't technically doable..." Six muttered in a voice that didn't seam to resonate properly, it wasn't her speaking, the inflections, the tone, it sounded like Weiss.

"No it's not. They aren't here Six." Beth explained. "She's in your head, they aren't, she can't hurt them."

"But, doesn't that mean we can't hurt her?" Ilia asked, looking at Beth confused.

"Psychiatrists can affect peoples heads without physically going inside them." Beth said with a smile. "Just, don't bother with the gun, there Six's creations and they can't hurt her."

"Why not?" Ilia asked as the Grimm Cinder continued to scream and smash the wall apart below them. (still failing to hurt Ironwood or Locasta)

"The guns come from Reach, Six made the guns after Cinder broke in and started messing with her mind, they were partially made because of her, they don't work against her, they're a part of the problem. They can't be used to fix it." Beth explained.

"Okay, so we just need to punch a giant monster to death?" Ilia asked dully. "Okay, no pressure then."

"You don't need to kill it, just attack it." Beth explained.

"How do you know all of this?" Ilia asked in complete confusion as she looked at the small girl.

"I wasn't exactly an active part of Six's mind, Six probably can't recognise me anymore." Beth explained.

"Yeah why are you in my head?" Six asked from the ground before she lost focus again and passed out.

"Ignore that, look, as she gets shut down I get stronger, I don't want that, I made my choice, it wasn't under the best conditions but I made it. This is her head ultimately, but you can't just say she can beat that thing, it did a pretty good job of pounding her into the dust that she just wont believe she can beat it, show her it can be hurt and she might come back to join the fight." Beth explained.

"But then what happens!?" Ilia asked, looking down at Six.

"A reaction happens and all her constructs come back." Beth said simply. "And once she's back she can kill this thing."

"But, it's in her head and it kicked her ass!" Ilia cried angrily. "How the hell is she supposed to deal with this thing this time!"

"Well, it got into her head because Cinder broke the door down by shattering her, put her back together and she can force her out, and you better get on it quickly, I think she's about to do the same to your friends." Beth said as she looked over the edge as Cinder managed to destroy the bit of the wall Locasta and Ironwood were holding onto, causing the two to fall. "Go, I'll make sure she sees it."

"Who are you?" Ilia asked as she looked down at the small girl (Who was currently picking up Six's head and angling it so she could see the monster)

"Get going, if she gets me I'm not sure Six is going to survive." Beth said with a smile as she looked over at Ilia, who nodded and jumped.

"Hey Cinder!" She yelled, the Grimm turned to look at her just as the girls foot made full contact with her face, smashing part of her jaw off as Ilia fell to the ground, or to the nothing as there wasn't a ground anymore to fall into.

Ilia fell and yelled: "Fin get me out of here!"

The world flashed white and Ilia staggered backwards, the Beacon infirmary springing back to life around her as she was caught by General Ironwood.

"Easy there girl, we're you able to do anything in there?" He asked as he looked down at her.

 _I wont be able to get you back in there, there isn't much left to... Hang on. It's coming back._

"Everyone get ready!" Ilia yelled, remembering what Beth had said about kicking the Grimm out, if it sprang up here into the real world...

Six's body glowed as her Aura field flashed into life, exploding something out, it hit the ground and rose to it's twelve pointed feet, looking around at it's opponents it started to laugh and say:

"You think you've got me beat don't you, well you don't! I'm gonna destroy you all, I'll grow bigger and bigger until..."

 _Splat!_

Unfortunately for the Cinder Grimm Spider hybrid thing, it was a Spider Grimm and designed to live in someone's head. It was not meant to be in the real world because it was about the size of a spider, and very vulnerable to Hunter feet.

 _No. You wont._

Fin looked down at it and then looked up.

 _That nearly got Six?_

"In her defence it was much bigger in her head." Locasta said as she walked towards the monitors investigating Six. "Okay, her brain activity's coming back, it looks more stable. Ilia can you wait here, she'll probably be happy to see you again given what went on in there."

"Okay." Ilia siad, settling in the chair next to Six's bed, waiting for the girl to wake up.


	69. Chapter 69

Chapter 69: I need a friggin break.

Six wasn't sure what was going on when she woke up, all she had was vague memories of fighting the human Cinder and a mass of blackness. So she was understandably confused when she found herself regaining conscious in Beacons medical ward.

Slowly she propped herself up, looking around at the dark ward (Given the fact the fractured moon was clearly visible from outside the windows Six could only assume it was either night time or extremely late in the afternoon) It looked similar to all the other times Six had been their. The neat rows of beds, pristine medical equipment and mostly empty beds.

Actually there were only two other people in the room when she woke up. Locasta and Ilia. (who was asleep in the visitors chair)

"Okay, what did I do this time?" Six asked sleepily. Causing Locasta and the other patient to jolt (Ilia was still fast asleep)

"Give me a minute Six and I'll be right over." Locasta cried with a notable edge of panic in her voice as she finished looking over the screen next to Six's bed.

"Are you okay Six?" The Nurse asked, her tail flicking from side to side as she bent down to examine the Spartan closely.

"My head is killing me and my face feels sore, but other than that I feel fine." Six said, not sure why the Nurse looked so worried as she fussed over her.

"That's it?" Locasta asked as she stood up.

"Yeah, why did something happen?" Six asked, completely baffled as she looked at the Nurse, who refused to make eye contact with her.

"Yes... What's the last thing you remember?" She asked nervoussly.

"Fighting Cinder, not sure if it... We did win right!?" Six gasped as she looked around nervously, as if she was expecting to see Noble Team lying in the other beds.

"Yes, you won, I did the autopsy to prove it." Locasta muttered in a tone that implied she'd rather not think about it. "But, well, there's a reason you can't remember the end of the fight."

"Do I want to know?" Six asked with a smirk.

"Well... Take a look." Locasta said, reaching for a mirror lying on the desk and showing it so Six could see her face in the mirror.

"Oh." Six said, reaching her hand up to touch the new scars. They didn't hurt but she could defiantly understand why her face felt so sore as she looked at it. "Well, Crap. Hope Ilia's okay with it."

"I, that's your reaction?" Locasta asked, her mouth slightly agape as she looked at the girl who seamed bizarrely unphased by her face being mangled.

"Well yeah." Six said dully, looking down at Ilia. "Gonna be honest I'm kinda used to getting scars, is she okay?"

"Ilia's fine, no one else got severely hurt by the fight, a few cuts when their Aura's gave out, but other than that you're the only major casualty." Locasta explained looking down at Six. "I'm going to need to tell everyone you're awake now, you've been out of it for a couple of days now."

"I have?" Six asked confusedly.

"Yes, we, you... Six..." Locasta couldn't get the words out, she bent down and pulled Six into a tight hug. A complete disregard for professionalism as she squeezed the girl.

"Okay, this is new..." Six muttered as the sheets were disturbed and Ilia began to stir.

"Six, we saw what's inside your head..." Locasta gasped as she let go, looking down at the girl.

"You, you what?" Six asked, confusion evident in her voice as she looked around, smiling as Ilia's eyes slowly opened.

"You wouldn't wake up after Cinders attack, you were screaming, with Fin's help we looked inside your head to fix the problem... it, it wasn't... You've been through so much..." Locasta said, looking down at the girl sadly.

"Wait, what... I, I'm so lost I don't, you were inside my head?"

"Yes, you needed help..." Ilia muttered as she pushed herself into an upright position on her seat.

"What for? What was I doing?" Six asked, her head tilted as she looked around at everyone.

"You were screaming, something was happening and you were terrified, Cinder left something in your head and we had to get it out... We saw Reach..."

"Oh, was it on fire or did you get to see it before then?" Six inquired, knowing if the answer was 'during' Ilia and the others probably wouldn't be doing so well.

"During, Six... You lived through that?" Ilia muttered, looking her girlfriend in the eye as she spoke.

"Well I got impaled by an energy sword at the end of it... But technically yes." Six explained, looking around and smiling.

"I, How can you say that with a smile on your face!?" Ilia asked in shock as she looked at Six's smile.

"Because of the fact I woke up here, met you and found my dead friends alive and well... So yeah, over all I'm okay with dyeing on Reach given what happened afterwards." Six smirked as she looked at Ilia, who held her mouth open for a second before closing it.

"So, you don't remember anything that happened inside your head." Ilia concluded as she looked around.

"Nope. I didn't even know you'd been inside my head, guessing my train wreck of a brain didn't come up with anything pleasant." Six said, suddenly realising the sort of thing Ilia and Locasta must have seen.

"Look, I'm sorry, I can't help what you saw, I didn't intend to scare you... I..." Six babbled before Ilia threw herself and her and wrapped her arms around her.

"Shut the fuck up." She said as she buried her head into Six's shoulder as she hugged her tighter.

"I can do that." Six said quietly as she returned the hug.

Being the one who had to support someone else was unusual (the last time she'd felt it she'd been trying to help Pyrrha out, that felt so long ago now.) She wasn't sure what to do, but she had an idea where to start.

"So... What exactly happened inside my head?"

…

"..." Six wanted to say something, she really did, but that was... Surreal.

"See why we were just a little bit worried about you?" Locasta asked as she looked down at the frozen Spartan.

"Yeah, just a little bit." Six muttered as her mind focused in on something.

"Can't be, no..." Six muttered as she looked at her hands. She clenched them and tried to channel her Aura. She needed it, she had to get it closer,s he could do this.

"Six..." Ilia said quietly, looking at her as she froze up tried to force more power into her.

"I can still do it..." Six said through gritted teeth, her nails digging into the palms of her hands as she clenched her fists tighter.

"Six..." Locasta began.

"I can do it!" Six yelled; her face scrunched up as she tried harder to summon her Mjolnir.

"Six you..." Locasta tried to say again.

" **No! I can do this!"** Six yelled.

" **No you can't!"** Locasta yelled back, waking the boy in the next bed up as she looked down at Six.

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry." Locasta continued, her voice quieter as looked down at the girl. "I'm sorry, but your Aura isn't the same anymore, Cinder tore part of it out of you and bonded it to herself, when she died her soul left her body and your semblance went with it."

"No..." Six muttered slowly.

"It's gone Six, you can't summon your armor anymore." Locasta said. "I'm sorry, but there's no way of getting it back, Aura isn't meant to be damaged in the first place and with what happened to you..."

"It's gone...?" Six said slowly, uncurling her fingers and looking down at them.

"I'm sorry." Locasta said, unable to look Six in the eye.

"I, I..." Six stammered.

"Get some rest, you need some sleep." Locasta finished as she turned away and left.

"I..." Six tried to get words out, they didn't work, they just stopped and froze up as she tried to speak.

"Six..." Ilia said slowly as she reached her hand out to touch Six, who jolted when it made contact with her.

"Ilia... I... What do I do? I've lost... I, I, my Mjolnir... I, I'm..." Words were currently not Six's strong point as her eyes started to tear up. "What do I do?"

"What you always do." Ilia said with a small smile. "Get back up and adapt."

"But..." Six began before Ilia burst out laughing.

"Seriously, we're doing this!?" Ilia asked, her eyes looking around. "Six, I've heard stories about you, you found ways of dealing with being here before you even knew you could summon your armor. You defended Velvet a day after arriving! Cardin was piss scared of you before you could pull the suit! You fought of Cinder in a frigging prom dress! You saved my fucking ass without it! You were holding all the debris with nothing on! For god's sake Six you're going to be fine! I know it hurts, but you can do this."

"I..." Six sighed as she looked around. "...I know, I have to move on... But, for fucks sake you know what's coming in a few weeks!"

"Yes I do! I don't have armor I can summon and I'm still going to fight! Are you going to give up!" Ilia yelled back.

"No of course I'm not going to!" Six cried out. "But... I..."

"Six, I've seen Reach, I've seen what you lived through, I know what you can do... Please, don't give up." Ilia said with a week smile as she looked at her.

"I... I won't... But..."

"It natural to be scared, but you can do this, I know you can." Ilia said as she looked at her girlfriend, smiling as she moved her hands up to her face.

"Sorry about the scars..." Six said, trying to force a laugh out despite the fact her eyes indicated she was still terrified.

"Given what I've seen in your head I only care about you still being alive." Ilia said with a smile.

"Yeah... sorry about everything you saw... even I don't understand everything you saw."

"What do you mean? It's your head." Ilia pointed out as Six turned so she could look at Ilia properly without having to turn her neck at an awkward angle.

"Yeah and I know what most of the things you met were... But I have no idea who that Beth girl was." Six said. "Besides do you honestly think what's in my head is ever going to make sense?"

"Well no, but serioussly, that green guy is who you wanted to be?" Ilia asked, thinking back on the Master Chief.

"Yeah, the dude was literally the best Spartan ever, why wouldn't I want to be him?" Six asked.

"Well I personally think you're infinitely cuter." Ilia said with a wink.

"Noted."

 _Awe! That's so cute!_

 _No it's not, it's cheesy._

 _Stop complaining about it! Glomp her now!_

"Also I can safely say Koko and Not Weiss are back." Six said with a grin as the voices returned to her head.

"Hold on!" Ilia gasped as she looked at Six. "You knew about them!?"

"Sorta, I only just got the voices down now, but yeah, I've heard them before." Six explained.

"You hear voices? Six that's not a good thing." Ilia pointed out.

"Eh, not like they've ever told me to burn anything down or such." Six countered.

"I am also somewhat disappointed all I got was a dead body." Ilia said with a laugh.

"I think you were probably alive when I didn't have a giant Grimm spider running around my head." Six said.

"Well yeah, but seriously why do I not have anything more?" Ilia asked, her tone clearly indicating she was messing with Six and wasn't serious.

"What do you want!? A fifty foot naked statue?" Six asked, trying to fight of laughter.

"Yes! Yes I do!" Ilia said before the pair burst out laughing.

Six knew life was going to get harder, but she knew she was going to have to adapt, she could do it, she had to, she wasn't losing moments like this, she refused to.


	70. Chapter 70

Chapter 70: How-li-day...?

Holiday. It was a strange word to Six. She knew what it meant (She wasn't completely oblivious to the concept) but she'd never actually had one.

The way Six saw it there was a distinct difference between taking a break, not having anything to do and a holiday. A break simply meant you were taking time off to recover (For example lying in the hospital bed was a break to let her body heal) having nothing to do was, well exactly what it sounds like, you have nothing to do and thus don't do anything. It's not physically exhausting but it's also not fun (This was Six before she made friends once classes were over) Holidays were a different beast together.

So far as Six could tell they only existed to give students time off. Six wasn't exactly sure what the reason was; her theory was 'Most people don't have a Spartans endurance and thus times like this are needed to get them in state where they can function again'

That was fine and all but it did leave Six with some questions, namely: So... what do I do with this free time?

She only had three ideas and even then all but one of them was vauge at best.

1: Spend lots of time with Ilia.

2: Spend time with friends.

3: Sort out gear.

Knowing what was coming in just two weeks and five days time (exact numbers are much easier to remember when the apocalypse is at the deadline) she needed to have something to give her an edge.

One of those things was the Prototype Suit, it still functioned and was probably the least damaged thing Six owned what with the worst of its injury's being some minor scratches and a weird bug where the middle finger on the left hand refused to do anything and was forever stuck fully extended.

The rest of her gear was sadly not in so good a state. Most of it was designed to work in UNSC space under a set of consistent universal physics. The same physics Remnant had taken one look at, laughed and then done its own thing with.

The end result of all this was two very battered ODST armor sets with some heavily bettered shield generators, Some thoroughly ruined ODST base suits, cracked visors and a Gravity hammer that had been through many fights and taken so much abuse it was working at fifty percent power... at best.

"You okay?" Ilia asked, looking down at Six as she sat cross legged on the floor of her room, looking down at the battered weapon she'd set down in front of her.

"My Weapons broken." Six said dully as she looked and cringed at her Dust ammo bodge job at the end.

"Thats, not good..." Ilia muttered, looking down at her whip for comfort.

"I don't think any of my gear can really cope with this word, Mjolnir obviously but seeing as that can't work and my ODST sets are on their last legs I feel like I need something else." Six explained, before looking to her girlfriends whip and asking: "Hey, how come your weapons so tough anyway?"

"Huh? My whip?" The Chameleon girl asked, drawing it from its holster and giving it a twirl. "No idea, I mean I made it but in theory it's not made of anything different to your gear."

"Could be Remnant metals jsut tougher, but taht doesn't sound right... Urgh" Six growled as she slapped herself in the face. "I need help, if only I knew a weapon nut..."

"Six." Ilia said slowly, adopting the tone one uses to explain the blindingly obvious.

...

"Hey Ruby!" Six yelled, slamming on the door for Team RWBY. "I need help with something!"

"Six..." A very sleepy voice asked from behind the door.

"Yeah, you awake yet?" Six asked, they should be awake, it was fairly late in the day.

"Six we're on holiday and it's nine in the morning..." The voice answered (although it was clear it belonged to Ruby now it was more awake)

"Oh... Sorry..." Six muttered. "Just, well... I needed some help with my weapon and..."

Within a split second the door was open, Ruby was fully dressed and appeared to be in the process of inhaling toast.

"Well why didn't you say so?" She asked with a dumb grin on her face as she stepped out and shut the door behind her.

"I didn't have a chance." Six responded dully.

"Fair enough... Six what the hell happened to your face!?" Ruby gasped as she looked at the girl, suddenly seeing the spider web of scars coating her face.

"Huh, oh the scars, erm... Look trust me when I say it was worth it given what we achieved, anyway can you please help me with my hammer and forget about my face?"

"I, if you're sure..."

"I am." Six said in such a tone that convinced Ruby.

I, I... Okay, you're having some trouble with your hammer?" Ruby asked, looking around for it.

"You might wanna just see it." Six said as the two walked towards the weapons bay (Ilia had gone back to sleep, Six would later learn the average sleep schedule for teenagers got pushed about five hours forwards and thus late waking up was expected.)

...

" **Six what the fuck did you do!?"** Ruby cried as she saw the hammer, falling to her knees and clutching her heat as she saw the sight in front of her.

"I am sorry Ruby." Six said, unable to look the damaged weapon in the eye as it lay there. "She jsut couldn't keep up the fight any longer, I've tried but I don't know how to maintain her... My Bodge certainly didn't help matters..."

"No it didn't." Ruby said, her tone more serious than Six had ever heard it before.

"I don't get it, your scythe is fine, Yang's gauntlets still function and Coco's insane minigun purse thing still works! So why is my Brute made weapon not working properly?" Six asked in frustration as she looked down at the hammer.

"Wait you didn't make it?" Ruby asked in surprise.

"Ruby; alien super soldier from another dimension. Spartan one o one states grab shit of the ground if you need something with more ammo in a hurry, so that's what I did with this." Six explained.

"Well that explains a lot." Ruby said, her eyes indicating she'd just figured something out.

"Why do I get the feeling this world once again is going to surprise me some new bullshit or something?" Six said, her eyes dull as she looked at Ruby who was scowling.

"Six this is serious, there's a reason why most students make their own weapons" Ruby said, her voice weirdly serious given it was her.

"And that reason is?" Six asked, knowing this answer was going to be bizarre and needed to be filed under 'Just roll with it' like the physics and whatever else Remnant threw at her.

"When we make a weapon we put a part of ourselves into it, it channels our Aura, making the attacks stronger and protecting the weapon." Ruby explained. "That's why Huntresses are more effective than soldiers, our stuff is just better."

"Yup, that sounds about right... So your soul is inside your scythe?" Six asked, looking at the huge death weapon Ruby had strapped to her back.

"No Crescent Rose doesn't have my soul in it, but she can channel it, if you want equipment that can last you need to build it yourself." Ruby explained.

"Great, less time to spend with people." Six muttered darkly, she didn't want to lose time, she wanted to hang out with Ilia, with anyone, this was just going to be another thing to..."

"Start in a week." Ruby said, Six looked at her confused so she elaborated. "Uncle Qrow helped me make Crescent Rose and I got that done in under a day... Well mostly, had to make some tweeks later but..."

"Hang on, hang on! No. Just, no! You did not make that in one day!" Six cried, looking at the mess in front of her, her brain refusing to process this new information as true.

"Well, yeah, I was ten, if It had taken much longer I'd have lost interest and..."

"Ruby, please don't try to explain this to me, I, I... Can you drag me back to my bed?" Six butted in, her brain was done.

"Okay, erm, out of interest why would..." Ruby began before Six hit the ground with a dull thump.

...

By the time Six woke up it was apparently the average wake up time for teenagers on holiday.

"Can't believe I slept through half my day." Six muttered darkly as she bit into her sandwich, glaring at it as if it had done her a great personal insult.

"Come on its only three in the afternoon." Ilia said, trying to cheer her up she smiled and nabbed more of the cocktail sausages Six had been wolfing down since that morning.

"Yeah, and I could have been doing something with the morning." Six pointed out as she moved onto whatever else was on her plate (Six was still underweight to the point it was unhealthy, so she was busy stuffing her face as much as possible without her being sick)

"Like what? You already seamed fairly active earlier." Yang muttered, looking over at Six with the kind of look that politely asked her not to wake her up at nine in the morning again.

A polite reminder that would be reinforced with an Ember Celica enhanced fist if she forgot.

"Okay in my defence getting up early is kind of hardwired into my brain." Six said, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly.

"Well un wire it or at the very least don't try and do stuff with us that early in the morning." Yang grunted as she munched on her crisps.

"Noted." Six said as she moved onto the meat on her plate. (Again she wasn't sure which meat it was but it tasted nice and she was about ninety percent sure it was chicken.)

"Hey Six!" Coco called from behind her.

Six's reaction clearly wasn't what she was hoping for as Six buried her face in her arms in front of her.

"Hey what's wrong?" The Betet wearing girl asked, looking down as Six tried to hide her face.

"Erm, Six..." Ilia began before Six butted in.

"Coco if you over react like everyone else I swear I'm gonna..."

"You call what we did over reacting!?" Weiss gasped in shock as she looked at the Spartan. Who in response pointed towards the window behind Weiss (Which was cracked)

"Yes."

"Well it kinda wasn't." Blake said as she looked up from her sketch pad. (Blake had eaten her fill before the others and was now doodling stuff in her book)

"Trust me we've seen worse." Carter said from the other side of Six. "Frankly I was happy she was okay."

"You call that okay!?" Weiss blurted, pointing to Six (who was really getting sick of hiding her face in her arms)

"Trust me she's better off than Thom." Kat muttered darkly.

"Hold on what's wrong with her face?" Coco asked a she looked at the group.

"It's nothing." Six muttered. Knowing full well it wasn't but it was her face and she felt no one else (other than perhaps Ilia) had any right to bitch about it having a few cuts.

"Nothing!?" Weiss gasped, struggling to force out a counter to that.

"Yeah sorry Six, I'm with Weiss; that isn't nothing." Ilia said with a small smile as she looked down and stroked her hair (Which currently hung down to her mid back, the logical part of her brain told her to cut it, every other bit told the logical bit to shut up)

"She is going to see it eventually." Blake pointed out, looking up from her sketched.

"Fine." Six muttered, forcing herself up nd turning to look at Coco; who, just as predicted: Over reacted.

"Gah! Six what the fuck happened!" She cried out, staggering backwards and being caught by Velvet who had joined her at some point while Six had her face in her arms.

"For the love of... It's a few scars!" Six gasped in frustration as she rolled her eyes.

"A few, a... Six you look like someone used your face as a knife sharpening block!" Coco cried (So loudly Velvet felt the need to cover her ears {Which is not easy when you have four to cover and only two hands})

"Urgh!" Six cried, planting her face in the table again. "It's not a b ig deal! What is everyone's problem!"

"Probably comes from the fact before Noble Team arrived here Weiss and Fox were the most injured people attending." Velvet said, smiling as she lifted Six's head of the table. "They don't hurt do they?"

"They're fine." Six said, happy for a different reaction. "Bit sore, it'll pass, believe me I know."

"I can believe it, I think you can get stuff that speeds the process up, weren't we going to get some for Fox once we were done at the Spa?" Velvet said, turning to Coco to ask her question.

"Yes, some oil stuff, it's more to make them fade quicker, but I think it'll help." Coco responded.

"You're going to the Spa?" Ilia asked with interest.

"Yup, was gonna invite you lot along actually." Coco explained.

"Who's you lot?" Yang asked. "Cause we're quite a large group." She pointed out, gesturing.

"Well..." Coco began.

"Don't say it." Velvet begged as she covered her face with her hands.

"... I've always wanted to go on a lesbian quadruple date." Coco said as Velvets face went red.

"So you wanted to invite us..." Blake said, pointing towards Yang and herself. "Ruby, Weiss, Six and Ilia to the spa at the same time?"

"Yeah pretty much." Coco said with a goofy grin. "What do ya say? You up for it?"

"Who's paying for this?" Weiss asked, her eyes narrowing as Coco looked at her.

"I'll do it." Six muttered, thinking to her bank account and the large number left in it.

"I was going to suggest we split it, but hey if Six is willing to cover all of us..." Coco began before receiving a slap to the back of the head by Velvet. "... Then I will have to decline and insist we split the price."

"That's acceptable, what do you say Ruby? Up for a Spa trip?" Weiss said, smiling down at the dark haired girl who thought for a second.

"Sure... but if it's boaring..."

"It's not, trust me you'll love it, even Six enjoyed it." Coco said, smiling at the ex Spartan who rolled her eyes.

"I'm good to go again if Ilia want's to."

"Yes!" She blurted, covering her mouth with her hands before looking around with an awkward smile. "Sorry, never been before."

"Welp, guess we're rectifying that." Six said, wondering if Spa's were more fun when you actually wanted to go and weren't being strong armed by someone who thought you looked a little bit tired.

They probably were; couldn't hurt to find out.

...

 **Authors notes:** **And he looked down on his story after three rocky chapters and declaired: Let there be downtime!**

 **Alternatively: Lets lighten the fuck up for a bit!**


	71. Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Attention span

Six was fairly confident she liked spas. She was also convinced she'd be seeing more of them if Ilia's reaction to getting the treatment was anything to go by.

They had had a fairly smooth trip over surprisingly. Carter and Emile were also coming, not because they were going to the Spa (They weren't) But because they and Jorge needed suits for his and Lucys wedding reception so they were going to get some with Mr Polaire (otherwise known as Daniel)

So the trip down had most of Noble team on board; Kat was staying behind to take advantage of the library being free of people for once to try and see if anything could be done about Six's Semblance, they were fairly confident the answer was 'No' but she wasn't giving up until she'd plumed ever option.

When they got on the airship Six noticed all the odd look's she was getting; she had moved around the school a bit since getting out of the hospital but she figured most people still didn't know about her latest scars.

She really wished they'd stop staring; the fact everyone else seemed more concerned than she was, was oddly off putting.

"Ilia should I care about this?" Six asked, pointing at her face.

"No, frankly the fact you don't is amazing... I guess it's just odd, most huntresses who've been out in the field for years rarely had anything like that, hell even the most violent White Fang members barely had anything." Ilia explained, turning to look at Six who was puzzled.

"So injures are uncommon here?" She asked in complete bemusement.

"Yeah basically..." Coco said, apparently getting board of Blake and Velvet's conversation about the book they were reading (Six didn't get why they were being so secretive about it, it was a book about ninjas, how bad could it be?) "...I mean it was a shock to see Fox for the first time, and the dude looks like he's got a few minor cuts compared to you."

"How did that happen anyway? Has he told you?" Six inquired, looking over at Coco who shrugged.

"Not really, I don't ask he doesn't answer, he's mentioned Grimm a couple of times but other than that, nothing." She explained as she looked over at Weiss. "Hey Weiss, how'd your scar happen?"

Weiss's face told everyone Coco hadn't said the most tactful thing (Most of them didn't need to be told in all fairness) and scowled at the group with a tone saying that was none of their business until...

"Yeah Weiss how did you get that Scar! I bet it was awesome! Was it fighting a grimm!? Or some kind of Robot monster, or!" Ruby babbled before Weiss put her hand over her mouth.

"Well if I really must talk about it..." One glance at Ruby's huge eyes told her the answer was yes. "...I was fighting a possessed suit of armor, it was my father's idea of a final test; it punched me in the face."

"Whoa... how big was it!" Ruby asked, eyes aglow.

"Hey Six..." Coco whispered with a grin on her face. "...If you ever need help on whether it's okay to talk about something, think about what Ruby's doing now and do the opposite."

"I'll make a note of it." Six said with a grin as she watched the unfolding scene.

"It was about double my height." Weiss conceded.

"Whoa... What was it armed with!" Ruby gasped.

"A Great sword." Weiss said, her eyes rolling a she went on. "It was big enough I could crouch on it."

"Wow, so..." Ruby began before Weiss blurted out:

"Look Ruby, I really don't want to talk about this... it wasn't a fun fight and I don't think Scars are an appropriate conversation topic." Weiss said, presumably hopping to shift the topic of conversation onto something different...

"Oh there's nothing wrong with discussing scars, for example this one..." Emile said, pulling his shirt up and pointing at a particularly nasty one across his gut. "...Got it during a training match, a certain trainee got a lucky hit on me during a sparring match, had me out of it for a day."

"The Doctor's said you should have been in the medical bay longer." Carter pointed out.

"You didn't hurt me that much Sir, just gave me a nice reminder to watch out more." Emile responded with a grin as he looked at the Spartan.

"Fair enough. Although when it comes to injuring team members..." Carter said, looking over at Six and grinning.

"What did I do to you? We didn't even train in the same company!" Six pointed out in indignation.

"No but Kat did and she's got this nice scar on her face, want to know where it came from?" Carter asked in the kind of tone that indicated he was going to answer no matter what Six said.

"Remind me, what did I do to her?" Six asked.

"Yeah spill!" Yang said as she plonked herself down next to Carter.

"Why do you want to know?" Weiss asked, walking over and finding a space to sit.

"Because if Six is involved chances are it will be awesome!" Yang said, punching the air and looking at Carter.

"Fair enough." He said with a week grin before he began to explain what happened.

"It was near the end of the Spartan III pre augmentation training. They were playing a war game and Kat had managed to hack the other team's radio. Apparently a certain trainee, B-312 had gone awol and just disappeared. Apparently not against the rules of this game, they were just advised to work in a group because it was squad training. Anyway they heard She was detected over near where they were and they got all excited thinking this was going to be easy..."

"Oh that!" Six beamed as the memories came flooding back. "I remember this... Wait that was Kat?"

"Aparently, anyway they went to her position and couldn't find her, according to Kat it was dark and in the woods..."

"No one ever thinks to look up." Ilia said with a smile as she pictured a tiny Six sitting in the tree watching the cadets looking around for her.

"Yup." Carter said as he looked at Ilia; then shifted over to Six. "Did you really manage to get all Six of them."

"Yeah, wasn't hard to be honest, they were all clumped together, the only mistake I made was ballsing up the countdown on my Grenade." Six said as she remembered. "if I'd held it a second longer Kat wouldn't have been able to get clear and I would have won the match there."

"Yeah well Kat got clear of the explosion, then had to try and fight Six, so she got a shot off..."

"You were training with Live ammo?" Yang asked in amazement.

"Yang we all train with live ammo." Ruby pointed out.

"Not when we were at Signal we didn't!" She gasped, looking at the Spartans in horror.

"We weren't using Live ammo, that was after Augmentation." Six explained. "Before then we used paintballs, but for this match we had some training ammo, it was basically super compressed chalk, disintegrated on contact but man did it hurt... or at least that's what everyone else said... never really found out."

"Jackass." Emile said with a smirk as he thwacked Six around the head.

"Anyway." Carter butted in. "They were having a shoot out and Six managed to hit her right across the face, she's still got the injury."

"Does any of your training involve not getting scarred?" Blake asked as she looked at the group.

"Not really, hell we had to take a clip full of the stuff during a training exercise..." Emile said as if reflecting upon fond memories.

"What!" The group gasped.

"Pain resistance training, the idea was we should be able to keep going no matter the injury, that was the final test... Not that some of us were happy with just doing it properly." Carter said, looking over at Six again, who was trying (And failing) to look innocent.

"What did you do that time?" Ruby asked as she looked at the purple haired girl.

"I took a creative interpretation of the brief." Six explained. "All it said was we had to go in and still be standing when the clip was empty, they never said we had to get hit by them."

"So you dodged the shots?" Yang asked, eyes alight with eagerness.

"No she didn't." Carter said, rolling his eyes as he looked at his teammate. "No what this girl did was, just as the buzzer was sounding ran up to the guy holding the gun, punched him in guts and took the gun, firing it at the guy holding the gun and then walked out."

"They were not happy with me that day." Six said with a smirk. "Kurt sided with me thankfully, argued I'd shown imitative and hadn't broken any rules... Although there was a firm warning to any other trainees not to do that and I was scrubbing the entire compound for two weeks after that."

"That happened?" Emile asked in amazement. "I thought that was just a dumb story."

"Nope. Though although the examiner tried to teach me a lesson for messing with his system... fucking dumb ass." Six muttered, thinking back to his unwarranted punishment/revenge.

"Do we want to ask what happened?" Ilia asked, looking at her girlfriend with equal parts respect/dread.

"He tried to corner me after training one day, was going to beat the shit out of me, Well that was the plan anyway, the problem was the dude was in his fifties and wasn't super big on exercise, I was a post op Spartan in her prime... It did not go well for him." Six said happily. "On the upside I was let off for that one, seeing as I was defending myself... even if some people argue that kicking him through the steel wall was pushing it a bit too far... Not my fault his neck snapped."

"Well, I suddenly don't want to get on your bad side." Coco said with a smile as she looked down at the girl.

"Don't worry, my augmentations are gone, at this point Yang could probably beat me in an arm wrestling match."

"Are you implying something?" Yang asked with a cold glare as she looked at the Spartan who grinned, placing her arm on the table and smiled at the blond.

...

As it turned out, challenging Yang to several arm wrestling matched in a row was not a good idea.

"Ow..." Six groaned as she massaged her arm, looking forward to getting someone to look it over properly.

"I warned you." Ruby said with a grin.

"No you didn't, you were too busy betting with Coco over who would win." Six shot back as they walked along the streets.

"True." Ruby said win a grin as they approached the building they were looking for, hopefully meaning they could get on with their trip.


	72. Chapter 72

Chapter 72: Who brought the Dog?

As it turned out they could indeed get on with their day... For about an hour, but you know, could have been worse.

Six was expecting the receptionist's reaction to seeing her face before they walked in, but that didn't make the reaction any easier to deal with.

 _Should we be worried about this?_

 _No, they're just not used to injuries like this._

 _You'd think a world with literal soulless monsters trying to kill every one would be more used to this._

 _Well they aint, better get used to people reacting like this when they see us otherwise we wont get anywhere._

 _Fine... This still sucks._

"...Six? Six!" A voice yelled, snapping Six away from Koko and Not Weiss' bickering.

"Huh? Sorry what?" Six askedin embrassment as she looked at the group.

 _We really shouldn't drift of in public._

 _It doesn't appear to be helping matters much._

"Six were you even listening?" Coco said, a small scowl on her face as she looked at Six.

 _No we..._

"Shut the fuck up..." Six muttered quietly, before returning to full volume and looking at Coco. "... No, sorry spaced out, what were we being asked?"

"Do you want a dude massaging you or a girl?" Weiss explained.

Six snorted with laughter.

"Girl, obviously... Why would I want a guy seeing me naked, hell why would any of us?" Six said, looking around at the group.

"Told ya." Coco said with a grin as the woman behind the desk smiled and told them to go through the door.

...

Six could safely say as she left that she'd enjoyed the trip, even if it wasn't for the right reasons.

For example she'd enjoyed laughing herself silly looking at Coco's masseuse (Who was defiantly not along the lines Coco was hoping for to say the least)

Six also had fun in the Sauna, again though, not for the right reasons.

Last time Six had been in one she'd been far too distracted to actually care about what was going on, the whole trip felt like a waste of time and as a result all of it was boring. Ergo she had concluded it probably wasn't as bad as she remembered it and would be far more enjoyable the second tiem around.

She was wrong.

Yang, Blake, Coco, Velevet, Ilia and Weiss could easily get into it, clearly finding it to be the enjoyable experience the brochure promised.

Sadly it was boring for Six and Ruby.

Sitting still and baking was not something Six particularly wanted to do. The conversations had drifted over to fashion and other things she didn't have enough knowledge about to contribute to, so for a while she simply sat there. Then she noticed Ruby looked equally board.

Then she noticed the water buckets.

Then they both got thrown out of the Sauna to wait for the next stage because of inappropriate use of water and disturbing the other customers.

Weiss somehow managed to contort her face in a way that showed she was both livid and amused at the two of them. (Ilia just had a small grin on her face as she looked at Six while Yang and Coco cheered the two on {All other parties just dipped their heads in shame})

"Well that was fun." Six said happily as she sat on a bench outside the Sauna, smiling as she looked over at Ruby, who nodded enthusiastically. (the act sent droplets of water everywhere, both of them were impressively soaked given all they'd had were a few buckets)

"Yeah! We defiantly need a proper water fight at some point!" The Silver eyed girl said, then began to think and was soon muttering under her breath: "If I work hard i might be able to make a water variant of Cresent before the holiday is over, if I can ask Weiss for some ice Dust I can make a blade that soaks the opponent on contact, would that work or..."

"You think things through a lot more than I thought." Six said as she watched Ruby's brain work at a mile a minute.

"Huh what?" Ruby said, jerked out of her thoughts as Six spoke. "Oh yeah, well I am the Leader after all, why do you think I was given the position?" She asked with a proud smile.

"No offense to you, but my reading of Ozpin was that he just kind of rolled with whatever happened." Six explained. "I know he has a method to his madness but that doesn't make it easy to follow. I know for certain if a random girl had shown up outside a UNSC training camp it would not have gone well for them."

"The more I hear about your world the more terrible it seems." Ruby said in a small voice, as if scared she was going to offend the Spartan.

"It was decidedly messed up yes." Six admitted. "It had it's good points obviously, I know plenty of brave men and women from back home, some of the best people I ever met... I just feel like this place is better for individuals, I can't see anyone back home allowing a student to run around with a red cloak all day if it wasn't part of the uniform."

"Yeah, Ozpin's cool like that." Ruby grinned, then she added: "Don't tell Yang I said a teacher was cool, I'll never hear the end of it."

"Doesn't she also benefit from him using Ozpin logic?" Six asked.

"Yes but details like that won't matter to her, I don't know if you've noticed but she isn't exactly very subtle." Ruby answered.

"Siblings make no sense." Six responded.

"Try living with one." Ruby said as the others left the Sauna.

...

Six and Ruby somehow managed to go the rest of the trip without causing anymore trouble (Well okay they may have thrown a small amount of mud at each other, but in there defence Yang also joined in on that one.)

"Well they did what the promised." Six said as they left, looking down at her freshly painted nails (Purple... Obviously) "I feel miles better."

"Is your face still hurting?" Ilia asked, looking over at Six's scars.

"Less than they were." Six responded, glancing down at the bag she had with cosmetics and a weird face cream that would supposedly help. (Unlike the last bag of cosmetic stuff Six actually intended to use this stuff, she really liked having her hair not look like a dry rats nest.)

"Well, what are we going to do next?" Weiss asked, looking around before noticing Six had stopped and was looking at a store across the street.

"What are you looking at?" Weiss asked. Six pointed towards the shop she was looking at. "'Construct a Bear?' Six that place is for kids..."

Weiss was then forced to deal with the full frontal assault of a weapon Six never realised she possessed. A puppy dog look.

A very bizarre puppy admittedly seeing as half her face was still a mess, but both eyes were still alive and huge.

"I, I... Anyone else want to go..."

"Yes!" Ruby blurted immediately (Earning a look of shame from Weiss)

"Yeah might be fun." Yang added, looking at the cat plushie in the window.

"It could be fun." Blake said quietly.

"I just want to watch Six being adorable, so yeah I wanna go in." Coco said with a large grin on her face.

"It couldn't hurt." Velvet muttered quietly.

"I cannot say no to that face." Ilia said looking at Six's face and resisting the urge to pull Six into a very tight hug.

"I, but, but... Fine." Weiss said, throwing her arms into the air as the group walked across the street.

...

The Staff of Construct a Bear handled themselves surprisingly well when a group of eight adult/near adult girls entered their store and all made a plushie (Even Weiss and Coco who originally had no desire to do it elected to make one because as something to do)

All of them left, plushies in bags and heading back to Beacon (Apparently Weiss wanted to avoid being seen with something so childish, to which Coco pointed out she should probably try a different girlfriend if that was such a big deal)

Six's ever growing collection of plushies now had a penguin in an overcoat called 'Bernard' to add to it (The idea of naming her collection never occurred to Six, but now she wanted names for her other plushies)

Blake had gone for a Bumble Bee doctor, Yang had a black Cat Nurse (she was planning to modify the outfit later so it fitted her taste more) Coco had gotten a brown bunny (Apparently it was for when her regular one wasn't available for hugs) Velvet was now the owner of an orange Fox, Ruby had a pale Blue Polar bear, Weiss had a Beige Begal and Ilia had a grey Wolf she'd called 'Number'

Six headed back to Beacon that night content, today had been great and spending the rest of it cuddling with Ilia and watching Anime seemed like the perfect ending. Nothing could ruin today for her.

...

Actually it could but for her to see what was going on she'd need to be able to get into Salem's throne room and see exactly what she was doing.

"I will ask you again, what happened to Cinder." She said in her cold voice, looking down at the small curled up orange figure glitching on top of the holo tank.

"I, I, I don't know, I... Error, error... Please make it stop!" Giran cried out, the former Ship AI was gutted at this point, unable to fully construct a body for herself.

"The lady asked you a question." Turak said, slamming his fist down on the table. Causing the Ai to vanish for a few seconds before flickering back to life. Clutching her head in agony with the one arm she could actually form.

"Please, please I don't know!" Giran cried out. She was gone at this point, she couldn't stick around any longer, she was already dead and they were just dragging this out at this point.

"Then find out, from what I've heard your blasted counterpart could do it." Salem said, trying to put a kind spin on her words, even if Grian didn't appreciate it.

"Don't talk to me about that! _Btzzzz ARGH!_ I, I... Please end it! Please!" Giran cried, flaring red and expanding before falling to the floor as her model tried to disappear before reappearing again and again.

"Tell me what happened and I'll consider it." Salem said disinterestedly as she looked at the pitiful construct.

"I, I, I... I'll try." Giran finally said, disappearing for a minute or so before reappearing in front of the Elite and his Lady. "Based on what I could find... This... Please, I, I... I..."

Giran vanished again before an orange reconstruction of the Mountain Glen battle appeared. The two watched as Noble Team (plus there tag along's) Slay the Grimm they'd sent to protect Cinder before showing a close up on Six and Cinder attacking her.

"So what got her, she was winning, she had everything... Oh, URGH!" Salem growled, having to resist the urge to roll her eyes as she saw how and why the girl had ended up dead.

"The fool lost to her greed." Turak said, his creepy mandible based smile somehow managing to look even worse than it used too as one of his mandibles had fallen off an hour ago.

Technically it hadn't originally been his mandible; it was a replacement after the Demon Noble Six blew his tank up, the original had been burned up in the explosion; what he'd been using for the last two months was a replacement grown for him by the Covenant doctors, sadly it had failed to stick so he was back down to three.

"It is a shame to lose such a loyal follower." Salem said in a bored tone, looking at the Elite as the scene reconstruction vanished and was replaced by the silently crying Giran. "And you should not celebrate, our enemy's have gained a valuable ally because of that and we have lost one of ours."

"My lady, with everything we have found, I do not think we need to worry about any one human." Turak said with a surprising amount of swagger.

"True, a Single human isn't a problem, but as I'm sure you know Turak..." Salem said, holding up a white hand with a cruel smile on her face as Turak's Arm started to clench and unclench convulsively and he fell to the ground, struggling to avoid crying out in pain. " ...It's never just one human, any distinct advantage they will use, every combination, every single one of them can be a threat if they work together. We need to be careful."

"I, yes My lady, I'm sorry." He said, climbing back to his feat and wriggling his Grimm Fingers to make sure they still worked.

"Turak you are a loyal follower and you will be rewarded, but as you just saw, getting overconfident is unwise." She said, her dark eyes staring into Turak's eyes as he shook his head.

"I understand My Lady, I'm sorry." He said, bowing to her. "I will begin training, I will not let you down."

"I know you won't." She said, her voice the closest it ever came to having warmth in it.

"Please..." Giran begged her voice quite and broken as she looked up at the two of them just as Turak left.

"You have been helpful, but I do believe I have managed to get everything I need out of you. Very well." She raised her hand, ripping the chip out of the tank and crushing it, before stamping on the chip and leaving the room. She was going to test to see if the Castles powers all worked yet.


	73. Chapter 73

Chapter 73: This should not be so hard!

Six had learnt one interesting thing about holidays, they seamed to fly past like crazy. It has been four days since the Spa trip and it felt like it was a few moments ago.

It wasn't like she hadn't been doing anything because she had, quite a lot of things actually, the most notable thing was starting to plan out a new weapon... Sort of.

Ruby had advised Six against trying to create any kind of technical diagram; just write down what she wanted to make and Qrow would help her figure out how to make it work (He had surprisingly agreed to help her out, Six wasn't sure how but he had said he was going to do it) So instead of any kind of plan or technical drawings all she had was doodles.

Outside of the fact she wanted another hammer she had no idea what she wanted to do with it. She'd asked Nora how she had the idea for Magnhild but all she'd gotten was a five minute long ramble slash lecture about if Ren and some wooden thing she'd gotten after meeting him.

So with that as a bust she'd simply drawn everything she could think of down and hoped something workable would come from them.

Not that she was working on that today, today was another fun day... Or at least it would be seeing as this day required a new outfit for Six.

"So why do you need a specific set of garments to go swimming in again?" She asked Coco as the pair walked along towards the store, her long haired tied in a ponytail which swung from side to side as she walked.

"Six I have a better question, Can you actually swim?" The beret wearing girl responded, really hoping she wasn't going to have to buy her friend arm bands as well.

"Of course I can swim, super soldier remember. What kind of super soldier can't swim?" Six said, giving Coco a sarcastic look of shame as she spoke. "Heck I can swim in my armor..."

Six trailed off, the fact she'd never have the suit back hitting her again, but she shook her head violently and grinned at Coco; who looked at her worriedly for a second them went back to her default mode of happiness.

"Well if that's true how come you've never worn a swimsuit before?" She asked Six, trying to get her back in the right head space.

"I don't remember wearing one before, not the same thing as never having worn one, defiantly can't remember it though, we trained in full clothing most of the time, it makes sense, generally in a fight you don't have time to change to go swimming." Six explained as Coco directed her into the shop.

"Fair enough, but here you're defiantly gonna need a swimsuit." Coco said before a guilty smile spread across her face as she added: "Trust me I've tried going in a pool without one and they were not happy."

"Coco were you wearing anything when you tried that?" Six asked, having a fairly good idea both how this girls brain worked and (because of that knowledge) What the answer probably was.

"Well no." Coco admitted, smiling broadly as she reflected and Six face palmed. "But in my defence it was a private pool and it was just Velvet in there, I didn't think her parents would kick up that much of a fuss."

Six had too put both hands over her mouth to stop herself from bursting out into an insane bout of laughter as the two of them walked inside the shop.

"Coco that's awful..." Six eventually got out, a grin the size of Beacon tower plasters over her face.

"Vel likes it. Anyway, now I wait till they're out of her house before I do that." Coco said; ignoring Six's grin as she moved towards the suits at the back of the shop. "Anyway, enough about me, lets find a suit that looks good on you."

"You think that exists?" Six asked. It wasn't like she had a problem with showing her multitude of scars off to the rest of the world, but if her face had been any indication the rest of the world might have a problem anyway.

"Eh, we'll find something..." Coco muttered as she reached up on the racks. "... Oh by the way, do you want a colour other than purple?"

"I can live with it if it looks better." Six said as she looked over the suits herself, the models displayed next to them also lacked scars, clearly she wasn't the target for these kind of things.

"Good choice... You're right that this is going to be hard, but don't worry we'll find something."

…

Two hours later.

"Well you weren't wrong about this being hard" Six said, sticking her head out from the door to look at Coco who ground her teeth in response as she scowled at the building pile of failed suits.

"Look Coco, I don't... Okay I do care, but seriously it wont kill me to not have a perfect suit..." Six began.

"Six, the fact you have a few injury's doesn't mean you should look bad." Coco shot back.

"Yeah, but injury's do kinda..." Six began before Coco put a hand to her mouth and fixed her dead on with her eyes.

"Stop talking." She said firmly. "We are going to find you a suit, you're going to look amazing and Ilia is going to shoot so much blood out of her nose that we're going to need an ambulance."

"Can we skip that last part?" Six asked as Coco ignored her and began routing around in the pile they hadn't tried yet. "Also you still haven't found your suit yet, Velvet might not take it well if it looks like you chose to spend the entire day looking at me in one..."

"Six as adorable as your attempt to get me to stop trying is; I'm not giving up, besides Velvets not that shallow or petty." Coco countered before diving into the pile.

"Okay point, but still..." Six began before she was interrupted by a new voice down the hall entering the changing rooms.

"Hey guys! What are you doing?" Penny asked, walking into the coridore.

"Trying to find her a Swimsuit, it's proving harder than expected... Penny?" She said, unsure if she was getting the girls name right or not.

"That's me!" The Ginger android said, beaming as she walked over to the pile. "Forgive me for saying this, but these seam too skimpy for her."

"What do you mean?" Coco asked curiously as she looked at her selection.

"Well the idea of these is to draw attention to the skin and physical build, if you had less scars these would look great." Penny explained as she held a particularly thin two piece up to Six. "But I'm not sure they work with the scars, you might want to try something a bit more modest that also looks good. I do not believe its a good idea to draw attention to her form, something that doesn't detract but also doesn't draw attention to it might look better."

"Since when were you a fashion expert?" Six asked as Coco stared at Penny in amazement. "Come to think of it why are you even here?" She said, noting the fact Penny wasn't holding any clothes herself.

"Since last night." Penny explained. "Ruby requested my help with something last night and I decided to do some research."

"Well that explains what you and Seven were doing." Six muttered, remembering having to pull the duvet up over her head so the orange light would stop hindering her attempts to get some sleep. "But what does Ruby need help with?"

"Well..."

…

 _Yesterday at 4pm Team RWBY's dorm._

"So then I had Weiss use her glyphs to pull me back so..." Ruby was saying to Penny (The rooms only current occupants) When the door was kicked open.

The first thing that came through the door was the smell of beer. Ruby turned around, about to welcome her uncle to her room, only to stop when she realised it was Winter standing there not Qrow.

She was distinctly more dishevelled than any other time she'd seen her. Her hair which had the air of being shot at dawn if it didn't flow properly had become a complete mess, her uniform was gone, replaced by a too big pair of shorts and T-shirt (Ruby was concerned over the fact it read 'Team STRQ 4 LiFE' on it, both because it probably meant Qrow was involved and also because Weiss had been trying to improve her grammar and spelling and that little 'I' was bugging her)

"Ruby Rose!" She declared, stumbling in and using Blake and Yang's beds for support as she tried to get back on her feet. "I have found you to be severely lacking!"

"Winter... What's going on?" Ruby asked nervously, backing up as she noticed Winters rapier shoved into the belt loop on her shorts.

"Your underwear is sevearly lacking!"

"..."

"What?" Ruby said, that being the only word she can force out (Even if on the inside she was wondering if she needed to fit a better lock on her door)

"If you and my _Hic!_ Sister are going to do those... things! Then I demand you get better undergarments, you're shockingly lacking in anyfing good." Winter said as she fought to regain balance.

"I, how do you know that..." Ruby said, legitimately worried about how much Weiss would hate her I she had to call the cops on her big sister.

"Never mind that! Take this and!" Winter said, throwing her a handful of Lien and looking like she wanted to say more before her Uncle bolted into site, seaming to drop from a few feet in the air and somehow managing to make no noise as he approached, grabbing Winter and dragging her from the room.

"Sorry about this, girls been going mad with my booze supply." Qrow said as he pulled her out of the room. "She hasn't left my flat though, she's just drunk... Come on Winter!"

"Boobies!" Winter cried madly as Qrow dragged her off down the corridor. Some sturggling sounded before a loud _'Crunk!'_ was heard and Qrow re-entered the room, red in the face as he looked at Ruby.

"Sorry about that, she over heard something and aparently isnt able to take it, I'm trying to keep a watch on her, would be easier if she didn't keep drinking my Beer while I wasn't looking.

"You suck!" Winter called while clearly dazed from down the hallway.

"Shut up! Look I swear the Ice queens better than this normally, just let me get her sober, keep the Lien and... I don't know, just don't mention this. I do not want her ending up like her mother."

Ruby and Penny looked at each other, then down at the Lien Winter had thrown, all fo which had very large numbers on them.

…

"And she's actually doing it?" Six asked, looking at Penny in bewilder meant.

"Apparently yes." Penny said with her usual smile in place. "She should be done choosing soon so we can get some trying on done."

"Okay then, hey you think this suit would look good on Six?" Coco said, clearly not super interested in why Penny was there and more interested in if she'd managed to find a good suit or not.

"I believe so." Penny nodded, looking at the suit Coco was holding.

"Give it here I'll try it." Six said, taking the suit and diving into the room.

…

"Okay it's on." Six said, pushing open the door and stepping out.

"I think we got it." Coco said smiling.

"It does look good." Penny added.

Six agreed. Granted there was a limit to what one could achieve given her body looked like it had been used for cheese grater testing, but the suit did work.

It was a relatively modest two piece set, with a somewhat concealing top section and a bottom section sporting a sash/skirt hybrid thing. Colour wise it was a relatively light Purple with vibrant orange coral like pattern decorating both parts.

"Hey Penny I found some... Wow Six you look good." Ruby said, walking into the room with some stuff slung over her arms.

"Thanks." Six said, smiling as she played with the end of her ponytail.

As Ruby walked past Six noticed something. She wasn't wearing her usual attire, she'd swapped it for a pair of black skinny jeans and a white T-shirt and the red cloak that never seamed to leave her back.

 _I need to ask about that._

…

 **Authors notes: Sorry, couldn't write yesterday so this chapters a bit late... Well should be back on track now.**


	74. Chapter 74

Chapter 74: I really shouldn't be doing this.

Six was in luck, she got to ask Ruby about her cape later that day. (Once she was done modelling to Penny and asking if she thought Weiss would like it, Coco had offered to help but Six had responded by pointing out Coco would just say the one which showed the most skin.)

Once that was done they left the store and headed to the pool and were soon greeted by Ilia and Velvet, who'd been at a different store also buying new suits.

"Out of curiosity..." Six began. "...How do you keep affording to buy new clothes all the time?" She finished, gesturing to the bags Coco and Velvet were holding.

"Well my family's rich and makes up for the fact they barely see me with large additions to my account each month." Coco explained, smiling as she spoke. "And Velvets more of a free lancer."

"A what?" Six asked in confusion as she looked at Velvet, who explained.

"I get paid to make outfits, mostly for conventions and things like taht, people wanting to cosplay... Dress up as a character they like..." Velvet elaborated upon seeing Six's fail to understand what she meant. "...Anyway that covers the occasional thing like this." She explained, nodding towards her purchase.

"Oh that makes sense." Six muttered as Ruby asked:

"Actually I have a question, how do you have so much, for someone stranded from another dimension how do you afford what you buy?"

"Ironwood paid me." Six explained, then upon realising the others understood nothing about what she'd just said she elaborated: "General Ironwood of the Atlesian military, he paid me in thanks for some of the stuff I did, including the fight in the CCT, you were there for that one Ruby." Six reminded.

"Oh yeah, I remember, man am I glad I didn't have to fight in those heels." Ruby said, thinking back to the lady stilts Yang had insisted she wear. "Seriously how do you do it Coco?"

"I swear it's really not that hard" Coco said, smiling at the four other girls with her (All of whom wore flats basically all the time) "Once you know what you're doing it's simple as breathing."

"Yeah I'm gonna call bullcrap on that." Six said a grin on her face as she looked at Coco.

"Six have you ever worn high heels? No seriously I wanna know, you ever worn them before?" Coco asked.

"I foresee you're trying to rope me into doing something I don't want to do." Six said, her gaze hardening as she looked at Coco. "So I'm completely not sorry to tell you this, but yes I have; I spent more time with my face embedded in the floor than I did on my feet."

"Eh, you'll get it with practise." Coco shrugged.

"The problem with that is I don't want to practise, there is literally no reason for me to try it." Six shot back.

"Oh I can think of a few." Coco responded.

"Try me." Six said, looking at Coco and fixing her with a look that just begged the fashionista to answer back.

...

After roughly twenty minutes of bickering (Durring which nothing was established or concluded other than Six hated heels and Coco was determined to get her in some {That and their girlfriends would really like them to stop arguing over trivial nonsense}) they arrived at the pool (Penny and Ruby were apparently planning to go after they finished shopping)

Six took her chance to ask about the cape as they entered the changing room, specifically when Ruby seemed somewhat reluctant to take the garment off.

"Ruby it's boiling outside and a Cape will do nothing but get in the way while you're trying to swim." Six pointed out, trying to ignore the stares she was getting from the other women in the room from all the scars adorning her body.

"I know that..." Ruby said, sighing as she took the garment off and carefully folding it into a neat square before carefully placing it into her locker (Which was odd because 'Carefully' would be the wrong word to describe how every other garment was place in there) "...I just, really like my cape."

"Why? If anything doesn't it get in the way?" Six asked, remembering when she first arrived in the Emerald forest, she remembered Ruby getting pinned in place because of a Nevermore feather piercing her cloak. (This memory was admittedly hard to find because Six getting stabbed through the arm was a far more prominent memory)

"Eh, sometimes, but... it reminds me of Mom..." Ruby said, her eyes falling.

 _Crap._

 _I think we might have fucked up._

 _No shit!_

"Ruby I'm sorry... I didn't mean to..." Six began but to her surprise Ruby laughed.

"It's fine, it was years ago... I can't be sad forever, she wouldn't want that. But I always remember her hood, I don't know why but that memory always stuck with me; her super hero cape. So, I wear my own... To remember her by." Ruby explained, sadness lacking in her face as she explained it, the only hint of the emotion came from her eyes, and even then it was eclipsed by a drive and bravery that dominated the silver orbs.

"I, that makes sense... is it one of hers or...?" Six asked, wondering privately if this was the right track to be taking this conversation.

"Oh no." Ruby said, her face back to being happy again. "Her cape was white, she put no effort in around Halloween for her costume."

"Hold on, so you wear a Red cloak to remember someone who wore a white one?" Six asked.

 _Does that even matter?_

 _Hey it is somewhat confusing._

 _No it isn't, your just think._

 _I'm literally the smart bit of her brain!_

 _Well you don't sound it._

In an effort to shut those two up Six jolted her head to the side violently to knock them off their feet before looking back at Ruby as she answered.

"Well I didn't want to be exactly like her and I like red so..." She began before a much better question crossed the dark haired girls mind. "...Well you know how it is, I mean have you worn anything that wasn't purple?"

"My ODST sets were gray." Six pointed out.

"Yeah, but you didn't chose them, you found them. Seriously I get liking a colour but even I wear something different occasionally." Ruby pointed out, completely unable to think of a time Six hadn't worn purple of someone else's uniform.

"What's wrong with purple?" Six asked, wondering if it was a bad colour all of a sudden, no one else had complained in all this time so if they were only doing this now...

"Nothing's wrong with Purple, it's just the only thing you wear." Velvet said, approaching the two from behind wearing a Dark Red bikini that showed off considerably more than her normal attire did.

"See even she agrees with me!" Ruby cried. "I mean, you painted your super advanced armor purple, why would you do that?"

Six shrugged in response.

"Beets me, I couldn't..."

She was going to say _'Tell you'_ But something stirred in the back of her head, something fuzzy and muffled she'd dreamt about before but forgotten upon waking.

Six was surrounded by giants, everything was double the size it was supposed to be and she was walking around an unfamiliar building, holding something in her hand (Which again was far too small compared to the world around it)

"... look! I want it!"

The heck was wrong with her voice? Why was it so hard to remember anything? Why was she talking to this giant? What was she pointing at? A dress? She hadn't worn one of them since Prom, why did she need to wear one here? Come to think of it why would she even wear one like that? The sleeves and skirt were far to poofy to be sensible.

"B _'blank'_ you _'blank'_ the word." The giant said. Her face unreadable because it was nothing but a pale tan blur with a bron squiggle adorning it.

"Please _'blank'_ " Six said, her voice disturbingly high and cutesy.

 _What's going on! Why aren't I running?_

"Well _'blank'_ we'll think about it this _'blank'_ if you're a good girl, now go sit down at the table, it's your favourite."

"Thank you 'blank'!" Six cried, hugging the legs of the giant before running off.

"Six you okay?" Velvet asked, looking at the former Spartan who nodded slowly.

"Yeah, just remembered something, some dumb dream where I was surrounded by giants... something about a dress... I don't know everything's really fuzzy before I turned thirteen."

What Six meant by 'Turned thirteen' was: 'Got augmented' Everything important before then had been drilled into her so hard she honestly couldn't get rid of it even if she tried.

"A dress?" Velvet asked slightly incredulously.

"Yes a damn dress." Six scowled, honestly slightly annoyed at that. "What's wrong with that?"

"Well no offense, but it's not exactly something we associate with you, I mean I've seen you wear one all the time I've known you... even then you weren't around long..." Velvet said gently, remembering how much of the dance Six skipped.

"So? I don't have anything against wearing dress. Just don't get the chance to normally, they're not exactly practical are they?" Six said, forgetting for a split second she was talking to Ruby who was a proud wearer of a combat skirt.

"We're not starting this now." Velvet said before Ruby could respond. "We came here to have fun, so let's have some fun."

"I agree with that sentiment." Six said, mostly just wanting to get away from this conversation.

"Great, come on Six let's try the slide." Velvet said with a beam, grabbing her and dragging her through the showers to the queue for the massive round thing that ended by flinging its riders into a splash section at the bottom.

"You're not going to invite Coco with us?" Six asked, noting the distinct lack of the Rabbit girls girlfriend.

"No, Coco doesn't like these slides; anyway I wanted to talk away from the others." Velvet explained as they slowly moved up the stairs to the top of the slide.

"What about?" Six asked nervously, looking around and wondering if this was going to go somewhere she didn't want it to.

"That dress you remember..."

"What about it." Six growled through clenched teeth. Why was she getting so much shit over this one detail?

"What did it look like." Upon seeing the girls blank expression Velvet elaborated. "The dress, it's an alien design and I make costumes, I want to know what it was like?"

"I don't know." Six said, shrugging. "It was kinda fuzzy looking with what I saw... I mean I think it was kind of tight fitting at the top, had poofy sleeves and this great skirt that really swirled when you twirled about, I think it had a lavender inside and highlights and... What!?" Six cried she looked at Velvet who was giggling slightly.

"That's something you can't remember well?"

"It was a nice dress..." Six muttered, wondering how the hell she knew that was true even if she couldn't consciously remember owning the damn thing.

"Sounds interesting... you want me to make it for you?" Velvet asked.

Six blinked a couple of times in response as she looked at her.

"Erm... Why would I want that?" Six asked.

Velvet shrugged in response.

"Well for one thing you sound like you liked it, two I don't have a commission and this sounds like fun to make and three I like making big gowns like that."

"Velvet the world is at risk of ending in just over two weeks..." Six muttered quietly, glancing around and making sure no one else in the queue could hear what she was saying. "...Now is really not the time to be playing pretty princess dress up."

"Yeah I know and I want something else to think about before that happens, worrying never gets me anywhere." Velvet explained. "Besides I think you'd like it."

"Not deni... I mean No!" Six blurted, wondering exactly why this was bothering her so much.

"Come on it'll be fun." Velvet said with a smile as the pair neared the front of the queue.

"Well yeah but..." Six glanced up at Beacon for a split second. "Look I know this is dumb coming from the girl who had about five different plushies adorning her shelves but I don't want to be seen wearing something like that..."

"Why?" Velvet asked confused as she looked at Six, who looked down at the ground and muttered something so quietly even Velvets enhanced hearing failed to pick up anything.

"Sorry didn't get that." Velvet said, looking at Six who looked up and mumbled (Only jsut loud enough for her to hear)

"I'm scared..."

Velvet just looked at her confused.

"Of what? Dresses don't eat people you know."

"Neither do Grimm but that doesn't mean they're a good thing." Six countered, causing Velvet to eye roll.

"Okay true, but Dress don't ever hurt you, some corsets yes but they aren't made anymore..." She said, noticing Six's eyes drop again she asked. "Six, what's the actual reason?"

Six thought about it hard, her eyes darting from side to side as she looked around, eventually reaching a decision.

"The guys... I'm the hyper lethal Noble Six... then I'm playing pretty pretty princess... I can't, I... I want to but I don't want them to know..." Six muttered, going red knowing what she was saying was completely ridiculous, she went to Contructa Bear Workshop, she had several more plush animals on her shelf, the others had seen what was left of her prom dress, why was this such a big deal to her? Why was this a step to far given everything else she'd done?

"Six... They'd understand..." Velvet said slowly, looking at Six who nodded.

"I know but, it's wrong... this isn't... No, not this again." Six gritted her teeth, actively trying to stop the tears from falling. "I hate crying, all it does is make me feel better, doesn't solve anything... I, urgh!"

Six growled, slapping herself in the face and muttering.

"Don't have time for this girly stuff, it's not needed and I don't need it, I just need to win the fight, I can worry about it later. No need to make this more complicated than it needs to be."

Velvet didn't know what to think as she looked at Six as she reached the front of the queue, looking like she wanted to both hide forever and rip something in half at the same time. Growling and swearing under her breath Six grabbed the rail at the top of the slide and disappeared as soon as the she saw the previous rider climb out of the bottom.

Velvet honestly wasn't sure what to think.

 _Why is this such a big deal? Her team would understand right?_

 _They probably would, there's no reason why they wouldn't... maybe I should talk to that Jorge guy about it, he seems the most understanding._

 _They can't have an objection to a girl doing something girly can they?_

 _I doubt it, maybe unintentionally but I don't think they'd think less of her on purpose..._

 _Could they do it accidently?_

 _It's a possibility, but I get the feeling this is more to do with Six herself than them._

 _Why though? Low self esteem because of the scars?_

 _That's never been a problem before now; she's always had most of them anyway..._

Velvet continued to think this over as she herself set off, although she wasn't enjoying the rapid turns and speed as much as she normally did.

 _Maybe she doesn't think she should like it because of that Spartan training?_

 _Isn't she trying to move past that though?_

 _I don't think she ever said that..._

 _You're right... she just wanted to learn more of the huntress style, she never said anything about not using her training, makes sense I guess... still why would that..._

 _Because they wanted kill bots not people?_

 _True... Urgh this is so annoying! This isn't a problem, doing something like that for the fun of it isn't a bad thing! If it was I wouldn't have worn that magical girl outfit when they guys were all out that one time..._

 _If I remember correctly we wore that for Coco, she certainly liked the skirt length on it..._

 _Shut up, that isn't helping..._

 _Look we got talk to Jorge, that's at least part of a plan right?_

 _Yes but it doesn't necessarily help her, this is so stupid! Why is this an issue!?_

 _Because it wasn't something she was dragged into._

 _What do you mean?_

 _We got her the first plushie, Coco took her to the Spa, Yang insisted they go dress shopping, you get what I'm saying?_

 _Does she think they're only okay with her doing stuff like that because someone started it for her?_

 _I don't know! It's Six, the gods only know what goes on inside her head..._

"Erm... Velvet?" A voice asked.

In shock Velvet looked around, realising she was at the bottom of the slide and that leaning on the edge was a glowing orange woman wearing a tricorn hat.

"... Seven?" Velvet asked, it just now hitting her she hadn't really seen the AI before, even when she lived inside Six's head.

"That's my name, you might want to get out of the end though, I think the others want to go..."

A quick look up made Velvet realise people were waiting for her to move, blushing she scrambled out of the end and looked at the AI.

"How did you know where I was?" She asked in confusion.

"Super advanced alien AI, I know a lot of things; I like to keep track on Noble teams allies." She explained. "What's up? you look bothered about something."

"It's..." Velvet sighed and explained the situation to Seven.

"Well that is the kind of hurdles Six's brain would jump." Seven muttered darkly, ignoring the looks she was earning as a see through glowing orange person.

"Well what do I do about it!?" Velvet cried in exasperation.

"You want to help her that badly?" Seven asked.

"Of course I do! Why wouldn't I?!"

Seven held her hands up defensively and smiled slightly. "Hey I didn't mean anything by that, just thought Coco tried to de clutter her mental issues usually."

"I know... just, I don't... look can you put something on that getting really distracting." Velvet blushed, gesturing to the fact Seven was only wearing boots, a hat and a flag tied like a cape.

"Kay!" Seven said, bouncing as she flashed slightly and returned with a replica of velvets bikini on. "Sorry it's not very creative, but..."

To Sevens surprise Velvet gaped at her before an enormous smile burst across her features.

"Seven you're a genius!" The Rabbit girl cried, a plan forming in her head as she ran towards Coco to explain the plan her brain had just created.

Seven meanwhile was left standing there confused... until a beach ball hit her in the side. She fell and somehow landed on her butt.

"I'm a hologram... how did...?" Seven muttered, looking at the beach ball in confusion.


	75. Chapter 75

Chapter 75: The best laid plans of Rabbit girls

To Velvets immense surprise she got a chance to put her plan in motion the next day. (there sadly wasn't much to report about the pool trip other than they had fun and Coco's suit covered so little about ninety percent of the male attendees and ten percent of the females passed out from excess blood loss)

The biggest problem she thought she was going to have was talking to Jorge without Six knowing, her plan didn't need this bit but she was determined to talk, the problem was she had no real reason (That anyone else needed to know) to talk to Jorge by herself, or ask where he lived.

Thankfully Coco (Unintentionally) had provided an answer soon after they got back from the pool. They'd been relaxing in there room when her scroll had beeped at her.

"Dammit." Coco muttered darkly, looking awkwardly at Velvet who moved to the side to allow Coco to reach her Scroll now she no longer had a rabbit girl lying on her.

Bitterly she pulled the devise open scanning the message, perking up the more she read it.

"Hey it's from Lucy!" She said brightly. "She's asking if we want to be brides maids at her wedding, apparently she wants us as well as Kat and Six."

"Really?" Fox asked from his bed, pulling his headphones off and pausing the audio book he was listening too. "Haven't you met before, like... Once?"

"Does it matter? She's asking us and I'm up for it, it's at the end of the holiday." Coco explained, looking at Velvet. "You want to do it?"

"Yeah." Velvet nodded, beaming, she got to be part of a wedding and a good opportunity to talk to Jorge.

"Well they want to talk to us tomorrow, want to see if Kat and Six are free?" Coco asked as she began scrolling through the names in her contacts.

"I know Six isn't." Velvet said as she adjusted her position and continued to doodle in her sketch pad. "She's making a new hammer."

"Well that's fair enough." Coco said, slightly disappointed as she called Six anyway.

"You sure you can't make it... Okay. Hey can you put Kat on... hey you want to come... Great." Coco hung up her Scroll and smiled. "Welp looks like we're paying her a visit tomorrow."

...

And so they did. It was times like this when Velvet wished her school wasn't built atop the cliffs surrounding the city and didn't require an hour's air travel to reach the ground. She didn't want to be sat here kicking her seat in frustration; she wanted to be on the ground talking, not in the air waiting for the damn ship to land.

"You okay Vel?" Coco asked gently as Velvet cried out in anger as a delay warning came out over the intercom.

"Yes, I'm the hap, hap, happiest girl in the fucking world right now." Velvet muttered through gritted teeth as she looked out at the grey clouds and strong rain that was pelting the air ships windows.

"Right and I'm a humble person." Coco responded with a knowing smile as she looked at her girlfriend and playfully flicked her ear before she went serious: "Vel, what's up with you, you've been distracted since the pool trip."

"I'll give you a hint: Her name begins with an 's' and she likes the colour purple." Velvet admitted, smiling slightly as she looked at Coco who rolled her eyes.

"What's wrong with that girl this time?" She asked, wishing she was more surprised than she was that Six was having more problems.

Velvet gave a quick explanation about Six's latest issue. Coco looked both sad for her and rolled her eyes.

"Yup, that sounds about right for her." Coco muttered as she masarged her temples and grinning weakly.

"That's not a good thing." Velvet pointed out as the ship swayed because of the wind and she was forced to cling tighter to Coco for support.

"I know... but at this point are we really surprised that she has more problems in her head... even if this one isn't completely her fault..." Coco said with a grin back on her face as she looked at Velvet who'd lowered her head again.

"I hate the fact she's like this..." She muttered. Clenching her fists together and glaring at the wall in front of her.

"I'm not a fan either." Coco admitted. "But hey, you want to help her, that's a start and a lot better than she had before, besides her friends would understand."

"I'm sure they would, but the fact Six is scared to be girly in front of them. I mean, I know she has her plushies but..."

"I know, it is weird; but hey you've got a plan right?" Coco asked, smiling at Velvet who tentatively nodded.

"Kinda? I mean; I have part of a plan..." Velvet muttered. "The problem is it doesn't solve the problem, it just lets her do this one thing... That's not solving anything... That's why I need to talk with Jorge... I think he'd understand."

"Well that's a start." Coco said, smiling at Velvet and adding: "I'm sure you'll get a chance... once this air ship lands."

...

The good news was the ship did eventually land. The bad news was it was about half an hour late because it was having difficulty dealing with the high winds blowing around and making the landing incredibly hard (Nothing made being late worse when it took ten minutes to move three feet down to the landing pad)

The rain was not making things easy for the two once they actually got off the airship. Granted they were both prepared for the weather but that didn't make it pleasant.

Coco though was personally happy to have this happen. There was no denying she liked doing general couple things even if they weren't going to be found in the dictionary under 'Conventional' anytime soon. One of these things involved holding the umbrella because she was taller and thus help keep her girlfriend dry.

As the most showy girl around it made sense, she liked helping her and Velvet liked being dry. So it was a win win.

Of course the problem with umbrellas is they only work vertically, they don't do so good against car wash. Which sadly happened... And Velvet was the one nearest the road.

To say Coco was not happy when the splash rose up and soaked her poor girlfriend (Who's maroon coat wasn't the most water proof when it came to huge swashes) would be a minor understatement.

So much so that she pulled her own coat off and handed it to Velvet.

"Get that on, you'll freeze if you keep yours on." She said, smiling as Velvet looked at her.

"But what about you?" She asked, looking at Coco who smiled and raised the umbrella slightly.

"I'll be fine, now get that on while I have a word with the driver." Coco said, happy the man had been stopped at the red lights of road construction.

As she approached him she made an effort to keep her face under control, she was pissed as hell but she knew what she was going to do.

"Hey what you looking at!" The driver yelled angrily as Coco walked up past his window and plonked her ass down on the bonnet; glaring at him (her efforts to stay in control had utterly failed)

"The jerk who soaked my girlfriend." She shot back as she carefully adjusted wear her left foot was.

"What that freak back there?" He said, gesturing and laughing as Coco's glare got harder, "Trust me doll you can do better than that trash."

"She has a name you ass." Coco shot back as she gently applied more pressure with her foot.

"Well I don't care, get your ass of my car and get your animal loving body out of my sight. It aint my problem if that thing's a bit wet."

"With pleasure asshole." Coco responded, jumping off the boot and proudly admiring her work.

"Bitch..." The driver muttered as the lights finally went green and he set off... Only to have to immediately stop because Coco had driven her Stiletto through the tire on his car.

"Hey what the!" He cried, jumping out to look at the flat tire. He turned and yelled at the retreating Coco. "Hey what the hell did you do to my car!?"

"It aint my problem if you don't look after your tires." Coco shot back, walking off with a smile on her face as she reunited with Velvet, holding the umbrella over her even if it meant she was no exposed.

"You didn't have to..." Velvet muttered, going red and looking down at the ground.

"We've been over this Vel. Yes I really do. Now come on let's get to Lucy's place, I'm freezing my ass off here." Coco said with a huge smile on her face as the two set off again.

...

"I say good on you." Daniel said as the two of them sat on his sofa warming their hands up with the mugs of steaming tea Ursus had insisted on making for them when they got in.

Looking around the room told you a lot about the people who lived in it. The flowers and nice curtains gave a strong feminine impression, however the frankly huge Boarbatusk tusks indicated a hunter their positioning in the dead centre just above the mantle piece also indicated the strong importance and pride there owner put in them.

However the slight mess everywhere indicated that both parties were either too busy to keep the place clean or simply didn't care.

"I still say it wasn't necessary..." Velvet muttered as she looked down at her tea.

"In this case dear I would side with Coco." Ursus said as she walked into the room with two towels in her hands which she carefully placed on the back of the sofa. "In my experience not doing anything doesn't stop anything."

Velvet let out a small chuckle.

"Funny, that's exactly what Six said." The Rabbit Faunus said, smiling as she remembered her first meeting with the Spartan girl. (while she would never admit it seeing Cardin in pain did bring her joy)

"Then the girl clearly knows what she's on about." Lucy said as she walked into the room. It was still too soon to see any visible bump on the woman however one note was she clearly hadn't been doing as much physical exercise as she used to. Her muscles (With the exception of her arms) were defiantly slightly less defined then they had been a few weeks ago.

"I don't like dropping to their level..." Velvet muttered as she tried to hide her face.

"Trust me in this kind of situation that's exactly what you should be doing." Ursus said as she sat down in her arm chair and looked at the rabbit girl. "Believe me I have experience and ultimately being the bigger person just gives them more opportunities to hurt you. A notice that you are not to be fucked with tends to put them off." She explained, touching her Polar bear ears and smiling slightly as she looked at Velvet. "Trust me I know what you're going through... Heck I was up in Atlas while I was going through it."

"I know..." Velvet mumbled. "I just really hate fights that didn't need to happen."

"Vel fights like that do need to happen." Coco responded, putting her arm around Velvet and pulling her closer.

"I guess..." Velvet muttered, looking around as the door opened.

For a second they got to see a drenched super soldier before his armor flashed off, appearing on the stand erected at the back of the room as the inhabitant walked imperfectly dry, several bags of shopping in his hands.

"Well you were right about the rain, it is bucketing down outside." Jorge said as he walked through to the dining room so he could deposit his shopping down.

Three of the four bags contained food, the last one though...

"Your gun wherein out or something?" Coco asked as she looked at the bulging bag from 'Overkill Weapons suppliers'

"Nope." Jorge said as Lucy took over.

"I'm making a weapon I can use while standing relatively still, we're planning to evacuate anyway, but you know... just in case." She explained, pointing to her belly. "The little one doesn't appreciate my normal fighting style of jumping around and flipping, so I want something I can use while not moving."

"Makes sense to me." Coco smiled. Velvet however took her chance to talk to Jorge.

Under the pretence of helping him unpack she moved one of the food bags to the kitchen (although she had been intending to take more than one she soon learned that was a bad idea the second she picked the first one up, they were exceedingly heavy)

"You okay?" Jorge asked as Velvet staggered in. Panting slightly with the effort of lifting the bag up onto the counter.

"Yeah..." Velvet panted, noting as she looked at Jorge just how out of proportion he looked with the rest of the house, his height and bulk made everything seem like it was just slightly too small (and that included herself) "... Just, how did you hold four of those things?"

Jorge smiled and pointed towards the suit of armor standing in the living room.

"Point." Velvet admitted as she looked around.

"How's Six doing, with... You know..." Jorge muttered. He'd heard about Six's semblance from Carter, however he hadn't talked to her about it yet on the ground she hadn't told him... it was hard to know how to respond to that kind of situation.

"As well as can be expected." Velvet said, shrugging slightly. "Sadly she's got more issues than that at the moment."

"I can see that if what Ilia said about Six's head was in any way true." Jorge admitted, smiling slightly.

"I see no reason to doubt it... but this issue isn't related to anything from that mess though."

"Oh... What is it?" Jorge asked as he picked up the cans he'd brought and placing them in the right places in the cupboard.

"Well she seems to be under the slightly deluded impression you'd lose all respect for her if you found out she wants to wear something like this." Velvet explained, pulling out her Scroll (Which thankfully was tough enough to withstand a bit of water thankfully) and showing Jorge a picture of the doodles she'd created based on Six's description.

"So does she want to fight in that or is it just something she wants to try out?" Jorge asked with an air of being mildly interested as he put away more of his shopping.

"I think she just wants to try it out, but somehow her heads such a mess that she is actively trying to not do it. Currently she's trying to think you'd lose all respect for her if that happened... Or you knew... don't tell her I'm going to make this for her by the way." Velvet explained.

Jorge reacted in the sanest way possible. By snorting with laughter.

"Tell her that's dumb, like insanely, incredibly dumb." Jorge said with a grin on his face as he finished unpacking.

"Well I knew that. In all honesty all it does is make me concerned about her mental health" Velvet admitted as she looked at Jorge.

"To be honest she's probably more than the worlds physiatrists could ever deal with." Jorge explained. "I mean, the Spartan Program never really cared about our social skills... it was impressive to them that I was so good with people."

"That's not a good thing is it." Velvet said with a small grin.

"No it isn't. Anyway, if Six ever asks I'm totally okay with her doing basically anything... I mean I've got my wife and kid because she set out to find me, I owe her way too much to care what she does in her free time." Jorge said with a smile as he looked down at Velvet.

"Yeah... thanks... actually I kind of need a lot of material to make this thing... and some other things." Velvet explained. Happy that at the very least her plan was advancing and Noble Team was in fact, Not stupid. (Well one member but Velvet saw no reason to doubt the rest of them.)

...

Meanwhile as Velvet and Coco visit to Lucy's home continued (mostly to talk about bridesmaids dresses now Velvets main reason for visiting was sorted) Six had been working on something completely different... and she was more than happy with the results.

She beamed at her latest creation. It was far better than anything else she'd made before on Remnant. A thing of true beauty. She was in love with her creation and it had been worth the insane amount of effort it had required to make it, now to test it.


	76. Chapter 76

Chapter 76: Forging

Six had been convinced that morning that a few drawings were not going to be enough to make a brand new full formed huntress weapon.

As it turned out it wasn't, you needed to add to that was a slightly drunk Qrow Branwen and about four pints of beer to her system.

Six had to say the least; a few questions about this when she saw it.

"Erm... What's that for?" She asked as she looked at the cans next to the pile of assorted parts lying on the bench behind Qrow.

"Trust me kind, this 'ill make the forging process a lot easier." Qrow responded as he offered Six a can.

"Sorry did you do this with Ruby when she made Crescent Rose?" Six inquired, wondering if Ruby had also been a part of law breaking when she was younger.

"No I gave her four litres of Cola... she was on a sugar high for days.." Qrow said with the kind of smile on would use to reminisce happy memory's...

"Bet that made Tai Yang happy." Six snorted as she imagining an even more hyperactive ruby bouncing off the walls.

"Yeah..." Qrow said, the happy reminiscing smile getting magnified by about five thousand percent.

"Well it's not my problem so long as I get a new hammer out of it!" Six beamed, deciding she'd probably done way worse before she hit puberty and thus Qrow's offence was on the minor side.

"That's the spirit!" Qrow declared, raising his arms to the sky and hew took Six's sketch pad and looked at the drawings inside.

His eye brows raised however when he reached a certain page Six had forgotten to rip out.

"Well kid, you certainly know what you like don't you?" Qrow asked with a sly grin as Six went red. Knowing what he's stumbled across.

…

Two days ago:

…

"So wait? Drawing people naked is romantic?" Six asked, turning to Ilia as the movie continued to play.

"Well it's a sign she trusts him and is okay with him seeing her at her most vulnerable and exposed." Ilia explained.

"I thought she just wanted to turn him on..." Six muttered, getting a reminder that she was pretty much out of her depth when it came to romance.

"Well that too..." Ilia smiled, looking at Six and giggling at her abashed face.

"So... this isn't meant to be an excuse to see that actress naked?" Six inquired, somewhat sad that her theory had been shot down.

"Well that might have been a part of it." Ilia said, smiling slightly.

"Well they defiantly wouldn't me to do that." Six observed, noting that if you put her scared mess of a body in front of the camera it defiantly wouldn't have the same impact... not that it wouldn't have one.

"Don't say that." Ilia said, her face dropping as she looked at Six, who snorted with laughter.

"Ilia I'm not sad about that (in all honesty the fact guys don't want top perv over me is a good thing) just making an observation that the scene wouldn't have the same impact if it was me posing."

"Oh really?" Ilia asked with a grin as a plan began to form in her mind.

"Erm... Yes." Six said, looking around and noting how everyone else was out at the moment (They'd all gone out drinking with Coco and Yang that night, Six and Ilia had elected to stay home and have a movie night instead)

"Well I feel the need to challenge you on that Six." Ilia beamed as she moved closer to her.

"Oh god what are you asking?" Six asked as she started to move backwards.

"Six I want to draw you like on of those Atlas girls." Ilia said with an enormous grin on her face.

Six could only respond in one way.

"Only if I get to as well."

…

Back to the present.

…

Six went bright red and snatched the sketchbook out of his hands, holding it tight to her chest.

"Relax I barley glanced at it." Qrow said. "I'm not gonna look at a naked drawing of an under-age girl."

"You promise me you didn't see anything?" Six asked slowly as her face stayed bright red.

"Saw her face for a few seconds, I looked down for a few seconds but I stopped when I realised what you were doing... Nice job on the face by the way."

"Thanks..." Six muttered as she flicked through the book till it came to the weapon drawings she's made.

"Okay lets have a look at these." Qrow said, taking the book and flicking through the pages.

Six stood there awkwardly for the next few minutes as Qrow looked through all the drawings she's made.

"Why do you want it to be able to hide under any skirt?" he inquired as he examined some of Six's annotations.

"I get attacked everywhere I go, I want to be able to hide it and bring it in with me where ever I go" Six explained. "And I'd rather hide it under a skirt than... other places..."

"Yup that makes sense to me." Qrow muttered, raising his cloak to reveal the pocket sewn into to it, a very large one that somehow fit his sword scythe thing into it.

"Yup... so think we can do it?" Six asked, looking at the can she'd sat down on the table and reaching out to grab it.

"One way to find out." He said as he pulled his hip flask out.

…

Four drunken hours later. (plus two hours passed out under the desk to sleep of the alcohol.)

…

"I, how!?" Six cried, looking down at what was lying in front of her.

The weapon was roughly five feet long (most of which was a collapsible handle) with a large square head which had four slots in three of it's four sides and its top. On the one square that was left free was a foot long Dust blade.

She held the weapon up, giving it a gentle swing, it felt so right. This wasn't a bulky alien weapon design for brutally smashing everything in front of it, this was an elegant human made weapon for brutally smashing everything in front of her.

"Nice job kid." Qrow grinned from the side as he pushed himself upright from his sleeping spot (specifically the table next to the one Six was under.)

"I, how... Being Drunk makes people worse at thinking things through and doing things... there is no logical way..." Six began before Qrow held his hand up, taking a swig of his hip flask (which somehow wasn't empty yet despite how much he drank from it.)

"See that's the problem kid! A huntress' weapon isn't a tool, its a part of them, if you use logic all the time nothing is going to work properly."

"But... But I literally have no idea what I did for the last six hours!" Six cried, gasping in shock as she looked down at the weapon.

"Yes you do, check your scroll." Qrow instructed.

Figuring it couldn't hurt Six booted up her scroll and noticed her photo storage was a lot more full then it used to be.

Opening it up she noticed a lot of photos showing her weapon in various states of construction.

"How did you get me to do this when I was drunk?" Six asked as she looked down at the images.

"I don't know. Anyway, name it!" He said, trying to dramatically point at Six's hammer. (it would have gone better if his arm hadn't fallen asleep and it just sort of dramatically flopped up. In the vague direction of her weapon.)

"Huh?" Six asked in confusion, looking down at her weapon.

"Name it! It needs a name!" Qrow explained, standing up and walking towards it.

"Why? Shouldn't I... you know... test it or something?" Six asked, figuring that was normally how weapon development went...

She then remembered she was on Remnant and all expectations should be thrown out the fucking window.

"No! Name it, it makes the bond stronger and thus makes the weapon stronger! Half the mechanisms wont work without an Aura backing it up."

"I... Sure..." Six muttered, looking down at her creation. It was a strange thing, not the bulky mess of her gravity hammer (even if the dust cartages and slots in the hammer were meant to have the same effect.) this thing was slimmer but still radiated power.

The name then came to Six, it was so obvious in retrospect, it tied into hammers and the part of her she was now missing...

"Mjolnir." Six declared, looking down at her weapon and grinning. "I'm naming her Mjolnir."

...

 **Authors notes: Sorry this is A: so late and B: so short. I fell I'll on Thursday and I'm still getting over it. my head has only just gotten to the point where trying to write doesn't hurt my brain. So sorry about that, I should be fine by the next update... date.**


	77. Chapter 77

Chapter 77: Queen of hammers

Weapon now in hand Six now needed to break it in… once she ate something.

Six hours was a long time to go without eating and Six was still underweight from everything that happened to her and it was honestly infuriating.

 _Putting on weight should not take this long._

 _Yeah, I have to agree with you there, its honestly kind of embarrassing that we can't find anything that puts us back in the healthy category._

 _Maybe we should just ask Nora what she eats._

 _But that girl never puts on any weight, I'm not sure we'd get anything from it._

 _Well we might as well still try it._

 _Why?_

 _Cause she's right over there._

They were indeed right, Nora was walking towards the cafeteria same as Six (His work done Qrow was off to deal with some business {While possible he had an actual job to do Six suspected he just wanted to drink more}) Smiling brightly Six walked over to her.

"Hey!" Six called as she approached. Nora turned around and her eyes immediately lit up when she saw what was strapped to Six's hips just above her butt.

"Six… Is that what I think it is?" Nora asked looking at the newly forged Mjolnir.

"Well that depends… What do you think it is?" Six grinned as she tapped her hammer.

"Is that a new hammer!?" Nora beamed as looked at the devise.

"Heck yes, it is!" Six responded, beaming from ear to ear. "just finished her and she needs a first fight and well…"

"Yes!" Nora yelled. "Heck yes it would be an honour!"

Then she thought about it for a few seconds and realised something…

"But… Why do you need a new hammer? What happened to your old one?" Nora asked, her head tilted as she looked at Six.

"I… My Gravity hammer…" Six looked at the ground sadly.

It was at that point Six's stomach let out an almighty roar that was easily audible to anyone within three meters of the girl, who went red and looked at Nora.

"Tell you what, how about I explain it to you after we have another pancake contest?"

…

Meanwhile in the kitchen.

…

"Sir!" One of the assistant chefs yelled, sprinting into the main cooking area. Her eyes were large, and she was shaking uncontrollably. "We've got another class 'S' emergency!"

"What!?" he cried out, looking around in horror. "But, but this has only happened once before, they can't want to do this again!"

"They do sir!" The poor traumatized assistant cried. "What do we do!?"

"Do you think we can hold them!?" The Head Chef called to his supplier who shook his head.

"No, we're understocked because of the holidays!" He responded, panic resonating throughout his voice.

"Dammit!" The head chef yelled, slamming his fist down into the counter (severely denting the metal counter)

"Sir what do we do!? They're asking what's taking so long!" The assistant Chef called out, his voice cracking as he sank to his knees in fear.

"Men, we have one option." The Head chef eventually said, getting ready to issue his last order.

…

"Hey what do you thinks taking them so long?" Nora asked, having sat down on the serving rail and looked at Six (Who was leaning against the barriers)

"No idea." Six shrugged, standing up and looking into the kitchen. "Strange, doesn't seem to be anyone in here."

Confused she vaulted over the entrance and looked around. The place was empty.

"Hey where'd they go?" Nora asked, leaning backwards to look in before continuing the motion to roll over the edge and land on her feet (Six also discovered at this point that she apparently didn't believe in safety shorts) "Did they forget we ordered or something?"

"No, no they didn't." Six muttered, looking at the floor and noticing the black marks left over from the treads of someone's shoes.

"You think there hiding the pancakes from us or something?" Nora asked (only half-jokingly)

"No. I think they remember the last time we came here for pancakes." Six muttered, looking at note hastily scrawled on the door.

 _Take the food just please don't kill us!_

"Think he used enough exclamation marks?" Six snorted.

"Nah, that's not even close to enough." Nora responded. Grinning as she pulled a marker out form somewhere (if it wasn't for the fact Six was scared of finding out she would have asked Nora where she hid everything she pulled out of her skirt.) and adding about twenty extra exclamation points to the door.

Once that was done Six decided to ask a question.

"Well want to take them up on their offer?"

…

After consuming three times their own weight in pancakes (Given how Remnants physics and her normal efforts of putting on weight went Six suspect she might have gained half a kilo from this… if she was lucky) Six took Nora to see Gravity Hammers remains.

Even Six felt bad about the state she'd left her previous weapon in, it somehow seamed even more depressed and bedraggled than before.

"Six… We can't leave him like this…" Nora muttered, looking at the poor weapon on the ground.

"I, I know… but what do we do?" Six asked, somehow getting the feeling she was looking at the body of a long-departed friend and now planning the funeral for them.

"Bring him to the lake in a couple of hours, I know what to do." Nora said, her face the most serious Six had ever seen it.

"Okay, but after than I need to give Mjolnir her test." Six explained.

"Very well, but the test will have to wait till tomorrow, it's better to fight in the day."

…

The sun was setting by the time Six set of for the lake. Six's Gravity Hammer was slung over her back as she got near to where she was meant to be going.

"Okay Nora I'm here!" Six yelled, approaching the lake and spotting the ginger haired girl standing at its edge.

"Six hey!" Nora cried, waving her over.

As Six got closer she noticed it wasn't just Nora waiting for her. Ren was also seated at the lakes edge.

"Hey." Six said. Ren nodded at her. She didn't see this as an insult, she knew full well Ren was a man of few words and he wasn't trying to be rude.

"II see you have him." Nora said curtly.

"Yeah, I do." Six said, pulling her faithful old hammer off her back.

"Put it down there." Nora said, pointing towards a small boat resting on the edge of the lake.

"Nora what are we doing?" Six asked, tilting her head to the side and looking to Ren who didn't visibly react in any way.

"We have to send him off properly." Nora explained. "So, put him in the boat."

"What do you mean…" Six began to ask before she noticed next to Magnhild lay three incendiary grenades. "…Oh."

Six then smiled, ran forward and carefully lay down her old weapon within the straw Nora had lined the boat with.

Her job done Six ran back as Ren stood up, gently pushing the boat off with his foot.

When it was about halfway across the lake Nora loaded one of her fire rounds and took aim with Magnhild. The three shots arced off and all of them hit their intended target.

It was then Six learned that Nora brought five times the normal strength incendiary grenades as the Boat exploded into a twelve-foot fireball.

"Vaaaaaaaalllllllllkkkkkyyyyrrrriiiiiieeee!" the voice of Glynda Goodwhich screamed in the distance.

"Nora you did ask permission to do this right?" Six asked nervously, guessing the answer.

"Sure I did…"

"Did they actually give it to you?" Ren asked, looking up at his childhood friend.

"Well no but…"

"Run!" Six cried as the three of them bolted away as fast as they could.

…

"God dammit Nora!" Six panted as they caught their breath in the girls changing room near their dorms.

"Well I'm sorry it's apparently not okay to set of large uncontrolled explosions on school grounds." Nora shot back, rolling her eyes and flumping down on one of the benches.

"You shouldn't have needed that told too you." Ren pointed out, clearly uncomfortable about where they'd chosen to hide/ catch their breath.

"We're a Huntsmen Academy, they can handle the odd explosion." Nora retorted.

"Well considering what they consider an entrance exam…" Six muttered, remembering the Spartan three training. She was not a fan but at the very least they hadn't flung her into a forest full of covenant.

"Yeah… that was mental… Didn't you meet Pyrrha and Jaune during that?" Nora asked.

"Yup. Jaune was stuck up a tree and Pyrrha was following him." Six explained. "I was butt ass naked… you know that suddenly explains the weird looks he kept giving me."

"How did you not figure that out at the time?" Ren asked from the side.

"I'd just woken up less than an hour ago cut me some slack." Six shot back (even if she was grinning) "Oh and I also met Weiss for the first time… and her reaction now makes sense."

"That day was fun." Nora said happily.

"Speak for yourself" Six retorted. "I got all my limbs broken, it is not a fun day when you have to yank a giant bird feather out of your arm."

"Oh yeah… forgot about that…" Nora shuddered as she thought back on the gruesome image. "that was nasty…"

"Yeah. Then the Snake happened." Six reminded her. "Have I ever thanked you for saving me from that thing? Because if not I would really like to take the opportunity to do it now."

"Oh, it was nothing." Nora said happily. "Like we were going to let some crazy girl get eaten…"

"Nora!" Ren hissed.

"Oh, come on Ren, she was only wearing a hoodie when we met her, we all thought she was insane."

"Believe me I am." Six said with a grin.

 _You tell them Six!_

 _I agree with the emotional idiot._

 _Whoo she agrees wait what was that last word?_

"See even the voices inside my head agree with me!" Six added happily.

Based on their reactions Six would assume they thought she was messing around for the sake of a joke… she decided it wasn't worth correcting either of them.


	78. Chapter 78

Chapter 78: Mjolnir VS Magnhild

The next day Six and Nora met up for a spar, Six's new hammer was to go against Nora's Magnhild, the hammer queens were going up against each other...

Apparently everyone else heard about the fight going down and (with nothing better to do) showed up to watch the fight.

"Well I wasn't expecting this big a crowd." Six muttered, looking around at the spectator seats. About a third of which were full, which doesn't sound like much however most of the students were on holiday and this was basically everyone who hadn't gone home for the two week break.

"Yeah, we better give them a good show!" Nora beamed, looking around and smiling at Ren who waved back from his seat in the crowd.

Six nodded as she spotted Ilia and the rest of Noble Team in amongst everyone else, apparently interested in seeing what Six had cooked up.

…

"I see she went for another hammer." Kat commented, looking down as Six flicked the weapon to life after retrieving it from her back.

"It would seam so, looks kinda like her gravity hammer doesn't it." Emile commented, slightly sad she hadn't shown more creativity, he'd like to have been on a team with someone who had... He didn't know, an assault rifle that turned into a flying robot shark or something.

"It's not quite the same though." Carter pointed out. "The heads got more vents on it and it's clearly built from the ground up to run on Dust."

"It looks stronger to me." Ilia commented off handedly. "and it just seams to fit her better."

"How can you tell?" Kat asked looking at Ilia inquisitively.

"Well for one this it looks like its made for her, not a nine foot alien gorilla thing." Ilia explained. "Secondly, well; it's hard to explain but it feels more like my whip to me... it's hard to explain, when you infuse a weapon with your aura it makes an impact; something changes about it and its not the same afterwards, I've seen enough regular weapons to know an Aura weapon and that's defiantly an Aura weapon."

"The fights about to start." Carter butted in as the two combatants charged at each other.

…

Six and Nora had fought before. As the two dominant hammer users in there class they frequently got pitted against each other in sparing.

Both of them were keeping a tally of there various victory's/losses. Currently Nora held a very narrow edge over her with twelve victories to Six's ten.

 _Time to make it eleven._

When the pair normally fought Six and Nora would charge at each other. Six did this because her old weapon wouldn't allow her to do any ranged attacks (One meter around where the hammer struck was not good enough as far as Six was concerned) Nora would go for a melee strike first because she found it was an infinity more fun than taking advantage of her ranged attacks.

This time though Six had a plan, raising her hammer like a golf club and swinging it, activating the dust blast at the peek time.

A surge of purple energy struck out across the sparing arena, Nora dived out of the way and converted her weapon into its grenade launcher form; stopping only for a split second to look at the substantial damage to the wall behind her.

Still though the orange haired girl didn't have a second to wait, she let lose two grenades at Six.

She grinned, raising her hammer into the air as one of the vents on the side (Not the one she'd used to fire at Nora with) and blasted herself to the side, flying though the air before activating one of the other vents to change her direction so she could hit the ground in front of Nora. Grinning Six swung.

Her strike was only just blocked by Nora and the two began a frantic battle, both weapons flying at lightning fast speeds and the occasional blast of either Dust or Grenades.

Six used her weapon to move around the arena faster than Nora could follow, sometimes using two or three different vents at the same time to move faster or simply to go places Nora wasn't expecting.

Six had never realised before what it was like to use a huntress weapon before. There was no way of getting around the fact this was better. For one thing she could use Mjolnir properly unlike her old gravity hammer. Secondly she suddenly had so much more increased mobility it was ridiculous, she could move at least ten meters in an instant in basically any direction.

Thirdly, she got proper feedback from Mjolnir; she had never fully understood what her gravity hammer was trying to say... as weird as that statement sounded to her. But it was true, Mjolnir did give her feedback, it was like she had another voice in her head (because it wasn't crowded enough up there already) one which told her she was fine, still holding out, maybe she should stop using this particular vent because it was a little strained... and all of this in less than a nano second.

Finally Six understood why Huntresses' stuck to their single weapon, why they always thought the Spartan method was unusual. Hell she even understood why Ruby treated Crescent Rose like a child, or why Nora had insisted they hold a funeral for her old hammer.

That being said Six had finished Mjolnir less than twenty four hours ago, where as Nora had been using Magnhild for over five years now; it doesn't take a genius to work out who was going to come out on top in that situation.

It didn't matter how strong the bond between Six and Mjolnir was, Nora and Magnhild had a stronger one and when the fight finally came to an end five intense minutes later the new score between the two was thirteen to Nora and ten to Six.

"Dammit." Six muttered angrily, punching the ground before carefully storing Mjolnir on her back.

"Awe cheer up, it was your first time fighting with her." Nora responded, a bubbly grin on her face as she offered Six a hand up. "And I can tell just from that one match that I am going to have to try incredibly hard to keep my title."

"Who said you were gonna keep it?" Six asked as she accepted Nora's offer and pulled herself up to her feet.

"Well someone's confident." Nora said with a grin.

"Yeah I am." Six responded, pointing up at the Aura board.

Six's Aura sat below the ten percent line, Nora's was right on it.

"One more hit and I would have had you."

"Well your welcome to try again some time, but for this one time I came out on top." Nora grinned as the two of them walked to the showers to get the sweat off them.

…

"Six I don't know whether I'm impressed by the weapon you made while drunk or depressed at the fact you lost." Emile commented as she stepped out of the changing room, considerably less sweaty.

"Oh bite me." Six responded with a grin. "It was my first time trying her out, give me another match and I'll be able to take out an army."

"I'll believe that when I see it." Emile responded with a grin.

"I'll make sure you do." Six shot back.

"Well I look foreward to seeing it."

"You will."

"Good."

"Yes."

"Six your girlfriends over here." Kat commented from the side, snapping the two of them out of there very small pissing match and causing Six to go red.

"Sorry..." She muttered quietly as she looked awkwardly at Ilia.

"What's to feel sorry about, you did great!" Ilia beamed. "What's it like using an Aura weapon."

"Its great, but if I explain it again the voices in my head will never stop yelling at me about repeating shit." Six said with a grin.

"You know if I hadn't met said voice I'd be worried about you." Ilia commented from the side.

"Wait voices?" Carter asked, slightly worried from the side.

"Koko and Not Weiss." Six exlained. "trust me its not a big deal, Koko's never told me to burn anything."

"What about... 'Not Weiss?'" Kat asked, while also trying to process the name she's heard.

"Well she has told me to burn stuff before, but that was for Grimm nests about four months ago, back on my mission with Team CFVY." Six explained, figuring that was probably an okay thing for the voices to say.

"Oh well that's okay." Kat said with a smile.

...

"Hey Six?" Emile asked from his work out mat as he finally finished his sit ups for that evening.

"Yeah?" Six asked, taking her eyes off Penny who was currently painting her toe nails orange to look at Emile.

"What was that floor made out of?"

"Erm... which floor?" Six asked, slightly confused as to exactly what he was asking about.

"The one you and Nora were sparing on, it took no damage despite how everything else was getting wrecked up." He clarified. "Mostly because I'm thinking of what I'm going to do with my school back at Menagerie, the sands fine and all but I think I can do better."

"Well I'm not sure, some kind of springy wood stuff I think. It mostly bounces attacks back instead of taking them." Six explained as Penny finished up on her feet.

"What is your school like?" The Ginger Android asked, turning to look at Emile with a curious look on her face. (Six was busy painting Ilia's toes a deep red {she'd done Penny's green first})

"Well 'School' is perhaps a bit of a generous statement..." Emile admitted awkwardly. "Its more like, me and some friends have a shack and stretch of beach where we teach kids how to kick ass."

"This does not sound like the most well thought out school ever." Penny said with a slightly confused smile (Although Six wasn't really sure when Penny wasn't smiling.)

"Well it's not." Emile admitted. "I've been making it up on the fly, all I've really got is the time table sorted out... would love one of those Aura monitors, knowing how far some can go would really help to push them further."

"Well if you can find a screen I can probably write the software." Kat said from the side. "I mean, if my friends going to found a school I'd rather it wasn't shit."

"Thanks Kat you're a great help." Emile shot back, throwing his towel (IE: the one he'd just finished mopping his sweat up with) at Kats head as she narrowly dodged it.

"No problem!" She responded chipperly.

"My advice would be build a proper building... seriously does that shack even have plumbing?" Carter asked from his bed.

"Wait you've seen it?" Six asked, slightly disappointed she'd missed this tour.

"Yes he has, I showed it to him while you were blacked out... Side note you black out a lot." Emile explained from the ground. "And no, no it doesn't have plumbing. In all fairness a lot of the buildings over their don't, they're mostly public places."

"Yeah I'd get proper toilets." Six said as she admired her work (It wasn't great but it was a distinct improvement over the first time she'd tried it.)

"Fine, bigger building and functioning plumbing, got it." Emile smiled as he rolled up his work out mat.

" _Gah!"_ Came a cry from the outside as well as the sound of a lot of stuff being dropped.

Curious Six stood up and opened the door, noticing Velvet scrambling to pick up the rolls of fabric she'd dropped.

"You okay?" Six asked, bending down and holding one of the rolls to her.

"Yeah, I'm fine..." Velvet muttered, snatching the roll and springing to her feet. "Gottagoby!"

With her Final blurt Velvet took off and ran as fast as she could towards her room.

"The fuck was that about?" Six asked as she watched the retreating rabbit girl.


	79. Chapter 79

Chapter 79: Almost there

Six couldn't help but notice how different this visit was to the last time she'd been in this dress shop.

The last time she'd been here it had just been her and Yang, no one else and they where strictly looking for one outfit each without having to worry about coordination or colour schemes.

Today however was not even close. Six had been surprised when she got up that morning with Kat throwing her pyjamas at her saying: "Get up, we've got shit to do!"

Sleepily the purple haired girl pulled herself out of bed and looked around. The male occupants of her room (Also Penny) were still asleep with the female population all dressed and looking at the sleepy Spartan.

"The fucks going on?" Six muttered as she hauled herself out of bed, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes once she was upright, dressed only in one of Carters T shirts and some underwear Coco had brought her as a joke. (Six could see no other reason for them to have 'Dive deep' written on the back of them)

"Dress shopping remember?" Ilia said as she handed Six a shirt, which the girl proceeded to pull over her head after discarding the sleeping shirt.

"No, no I don't remember." Six responded as she cricked her back and pulled up a pair of denim shorts she'd found on the floor (She wasn't one hundred percent sure they were hers but no one seamed to give a shit) "What do we need dresses for?"

"Jorge and Lucys reception." Kat explained. "We agreed on a time with Coco and Velvet two days ago, honestly Six were you not paying attention?"

Six didn't verbally respond. Instead she just pointed towards her newly Build Mjolnir (Which sat in the hands of her old armor {Even if she couldn't use it any more she wasn't getting rid of it})

"Oh right, I forgot you were doing that… Anyway Coco and Velvet went to see Lucy and today was the only day we were all free, so we're going now." Kat responded.

"Okay that makes sense." Six nodded; before adding: "But why are we getting dresses for the reception?"

"Two reasons: One because Lucy would at least like to pretend she went to her reception form a proper ceremony, and two: Me and Ilia don't have any dresses and yours looks like it's been fed through a shredder." Kat explained before throwing Six's trainers at her.

Getting the idea Six caught the flung shoes and pulled them on. Part of her looking forward to this trip… even if she was glad none of the guys would see what she was doing.

…

The group formed over the next two hours, with Six's party meeting up with Coco and Velvet at the air dock and waited around for about half an hour for the ship to get in…

"So we could have been asleep for another hour." Six muttered darkly as the ship finally landed.

"Six your turning into a brick while in bed." Kat explained. "We figured getting up early wouldn't be that bad, anyway the rest of us were up, why weren't you?"

"I was tired, Breaking Mjolnir in takes a lot of effort." Six retorted, her having been in the weapons testing area until about two in the morning and working at five hundred percent for the entire time. (Work outs like this were probably the main reason Six could still be underweight despite her best efforts to eat everything the Beacon chefs could produce in a day)

"You could take a break you know." Ilia pointed out. "I know your preparing for the end of the vital festival, but five minutes wouldn't kill you."

"I know." Six muttered. "But my sense of perspective always gets drowned out by the other one yelling: Less than two weeks!"

"Out of curiosity, is this a voice talking to you or more of a metaphorical thing?" Kat asked.

"No, it's just me, there's no actual voice telling me that." Six explained with a smile.

"Hey Ilia, does it ever bother you that your girlfriend hears voices in her head?" Coco asked with a grin.

The chameleon girl responded by raising her eyebrow and saying:

"I'm fine with the voices, what bugs me is that one of them is you."

"Really?" Coco asked, legitimately surprised.

"Yes." Six said from next to Ilia. "You're the bit of me telling me to have fun and do whatever random crap I feel like doing."

"So in other words it's your fault that we got dragged into 'Construct a Bear'" Velvet commented.

"You liked that trip and you know it." Six shot back, going red as the ship finally landed.

"Well obviously." Coco responded, grinning at Velvet as they got off the ship. "Velvet the second has proven to be a great help recently."

"Huh? Why?" Six asked as Velvet shot Coco a dirty look and said.

"I got a commission, been working late on it."

"My Snuggle time has been severely affected." Coco pouted; looking at Six as if to imply this was her fault somehow.

"Oh, well at least you don't have to make the dresses for this." Six said, shrugging of Coco's glare as they walked outside.

"I'd hope not, it's set to happen in four days." Lucy called, sitting on the wall of one of the terminals flower beds; getting up to greet the five as they approached.

"Last day of the holidays." Six muttered, realising she had ten days before everything went to hell.

"Yeah, not fun, so lets make sure we all have some fun before that, and step one to having fun is looking good!" Lucy cried happily.

"Your just happy to have a wedding dress to wear." Coco responded grinning.

"Well yeah, in my defence my ceremony was about ten minutes long and the highlight was signing the piece of paper, forgive me if I feel like doing at least part of it properly." Lucy said defensively.

"None of us ever said you were in the wrong." Six pointed out.

"Good because I'm not, now let's go!" She declared, dramatically pointing in the direction of the dress store.

…

So now Six was back, standing in a changing room and pulling on a snow white solderless dress. She was basically acting as a glorified mannequin because she wasn't the best at picking outfits and if something could be made to look good on her scared physic then it could look good on any of them.

They'd judged Six as not being good at outfit choosing when she'd discovered the theme was 'Winter' and suggesting they save a lot of time by raiding Weiss' wardrobe (And Idea that got shot down when Kat and Velvet puffed out there chests slightly {Kat made the biggest argument for that, Six really had forgotten how big they were until she put on a tight fitting tank top})

"Just going to say 'Winter' is not the best theme to be celebrating at the beginning of Spring." Six pointed out, not that she was worried about the theme or that even bothered by it. It was just that she was board and her brain was thinking up random crap to keep her entertained.

"That's why it's a theme not a time of year, besides it was Winter when we signed the papers." Lucy responded from the podium she was standing on while her gown was fitted (she'd chosen it a while ago, now she was just having the final tweaks made to it)

"Point. Also aren't we going to blend together if we're all wearing white?" Six pointed out as she stepped out to show off the dress the others had chosen.

"It's winter, what other colour would you recommend? And don't say purple." Coco pointed out, adding the last four words with a notable edge of panic mixed in with anger.

"Well you could try blue, maybe a hint of red…"

"You're just describing what Weiss wears!" Coco cried in annoyance.

"Her last name is 'Schnee' it literally means 'Snow' in German!" Six called back, grinning slightly at the look on Cocos face.

"We're not doing that." Coco responded.

"Technically its Lucy who…"

"We're not doing that." Lucy called.

"Fuck." Six muttered, turning around so Ilia could see her choice from the back.

"No… I'm not seeing it…" Ilia muttered.

"Ilia nothing, I try on is going to look good." Six pointed out, gesturing towards her face. "Or do I need to remind you the owner passed out when I walked in?"

"I am sorry about that." The owner said as she stepped out from behind Lucy as she pinned more of the dress in place.

"Nah it's fine, I know my face looks like I took a cheese greater to it, my point is plenty of perfectly good stuff is going to look bad by the simple I'm wearing it." Six explained.

"And I'm going to say the same thing I did the first time you pointed that out." Lucy responded. "All of you are going to look amazing no matter how hard that might be."

"What if I wore bandages over my arms and legs, that would fit the colour scheme and hide the scars." Six suggested, rolling her eyes as she said it.

"That still wouldn't solve the problem with your face." Velvet pointed out. "Not that it's really a problem, it just stands out… you know what I mean."

"Yes, I do, and I still want to call bull on the fact that only the Bride gets to cover her face." Six added.

"You do know I'm not going to cover my face with my vale, right? we're kinda past that point." Lucy commented from the side as Six disappeared to take the dress off.

"Then what's the point of having it?" Six asked as she carefully re hung the garment.

"Its part of the… how do you not know these things?" The owner asked, causing Six to freeze up.

"Errr…"

"She had a really intense trainer when she was younger." Kat explained hastily. "So, did I, we were mostly just trying to get good at fighting… She was really into it."

 _Well… she isn't lying._

"Yeah… That." Six muttered as she leant against the wall of the changing room, waiting for a new outfit to be given to her.

"Well that's a shame, anyway you're bandage idea might have some merit." The dress maker said, smiling as she adjusted Lucy's dresses skirt.

"Erm…" All the other girls in the room said while Six muttered.

"I was only joking…" Six muttered.

"I don't mean with literal bandaged." The store owner explained, smiling as she explained. "But wraps of a good quality material could look good, and if you all did it it wouldn't look that out of place."

The other four all looked at each other debating non-verbally. Not liking the silence Six decided to call out.

"Well I'd do it." Six called. "Although if I have to wrap my face up we're going to have problems."

That got everyone to laugh and the others agreed to at least try it… once they found a dress they liked.

…

"Well that took ages." Six muttered as they staggered out of the shot, all of them weighed down with an outfit and new shoes (Six was over the moon to discover she was going to have to wear heels for the event, even if Coco had vowed to teach her how to walk properly in them) and about twenty feet of silk wrappings each (Despite how dumb the idea seamed it had sort of stuck)

"Hey we found something!" Coco said, grinning as she lead the group (Not Lucy, she was going to get her gown home as soon as possible and then go to the hospital, she was booked to see how the baby was developing) "That's a plus, besides this place is going to make everything worth it."

"I'll believe it when I see it." Six muttered darkly as her stomach growled.

"How tired can you be, all you did was try on a bunch of dresses." Kat pointed out from behind her. Six turned to scowl while Velvet moved slightly closer to the girl so she could talk.

"Give her a break okay, trust me as someone who's going out with Coco I can tell you trying on clothing takes a lot out of you." Velvet said with a small grin as she looked over at said girl who smiled goofily and blew her a kiss.

"Yeah, I guess." Kat conceded. "I must say though I think she did well given how boring it must have been."

Dropping her voice slightly Velvet responded.

"Actually, I think she kind of likes it."

"Really?" Kat asked, her head tilted as she looked at her teammate (Who was talking with Ilia about something Yang had apparently given her.)

"Yeah, that's not a problem is it?" Velvet asked, knowing full well what the answer was.

"Of course, it isn't" Kat said, rolling her eyes. "She can enjoy what she wants, I'm just not getting the appeal personally."

"Well you did only try one thing on at the end and I still cannot believe she had your size." Velvet muttered, looking down at the girls absurdly large chest.

"True, still I think I've got more important things to do." Kat muttered as they stopped to cross a road.

"Like what?" Velvet asked, wondering what Kat did in her spare time.

"Trying to write some software for Emile… it's proving harder than expected." Kat muttered.

"You know you could just ask me?" Seven said, the AI flashing to life next to them and startling everyone nearby as a glowing orange person appeared next to them.

"Gah! Stop doing that!" Velvet cried, jumping back a foot as Seven giggled.

"Sorry you make it way too much fun, anyway Kat I can solve your little coding issue if you'd like…"

"Seven if I wanted to just copy the software I'd have broken in myself." Kat shot back dully. "I don't want to do that. His school's legitimacy is bad enough as it is without adding software theft to it."

"Aren't all the schools entitled to the basic systems?" Seven responded, ignoring all the stares she was getting from passers by. (unrelated but Six was very happy to have the orange glowing person around, it gave people someone else to stare at.)

"Yes, but this isn't an official school. So they just have to sort of make things work as best we can; ergo I'm going to write the damn software from scratch so no one can throw a shit fit… Well for those reasons anyway."

"And we're here!" Coco declared happily, pointing towards the sign of the restaurant they were standing outside of.

Six's first impression was that a dark pink and black fifty's American dinner had flown through time and space to land on a different planet. Ignoring that ridiculous idea, she looked at the menu stuck to the window. Her jaw dropped.

"This place only has desserts?" Six asked in awe as she looked at all the appealing things on the menu (and vowing to get the most chocolatey thing she could find.)

"Yup." Coco grinned, looking at the purple haired girls face. "Thought you might like this."

"Aren't we meant to be watching our weight?" Kat asked with one eyebrow raised.

"We can go nuts once." Coco responded.

"She's just addicted to the milkshakes they have here." Velvet explained as everyone else sniggered slightly.

"You can't prove that!" Coco declared as the entered, ready to enjoy some of the most sugar foods the group would ever consume.


	80. Chapter 80

Chapter 80: I'm glad we got this

Six had recently learned one thing that was common knowledge to most people her age: The holidays never last.

It amazed her to think that it had been two weeks since the start, because it sure as hell didn't feel like it. It felt like… well in all honesty it was just a blur.

But now, here she was, getting changed into her bride's maids dress (ignoring the fact none of them had actually been there for the wedding) on the last day of her holiday.

"Which idiot suggested the wraps?" Coco called as she struggled to get the ribbon to wrap around her arms and stay there.

"That would be me." Six responded, grinning as she wrapped the white ribbon around her arms. Unlike Coco she was used to patching herself up and as such had no difficulty with bandages and wraps.

"Well you're an idiot." Coco shot back, only to receive a slap to the head from Ilia and Velvet.

"We all agreed to this." Ilia responded, her also having managed to get the ribbons around her arms and legs with no difficulty.

"Give me a sec and I'll give you a hand." Six called as she finished on her arms and moved onto her legs, wrapping them up.

The wraps had two benefits, one was that they fit the snowy winter theme Lucy wanted to go with (Made sense to anyone that knew her, she was from Atlas, a kingdom that was always buried in snow and ice, also she was part polar bear) and two: to make Six stand out a lot less than she normally did and thus spare her a lot of odd looks from people who didn't know her.

Now the obvious problem was that Six's face was still an absolute mess, but at the very least you'd need to be looking her in the face and couldn't see anything on her legs or such.

"Okay. But let me sort your hair first." Coco responded as she abandoned her arms, gesturing Six over to the bed she was currently working at (technically it was Penny's bed)

Six nodded and walked over to her, actually looking forward to having her hair done by Coco, the last time it had happened was at the dance months ago and it had looked great then; it would be nice to have her hair look good again.

"Well someone's been looking after her hair better." Coco commented as she dug into Six's long mess of hair.

"Well of course I have…" Six muttered, glancing over at Kat before focusing on the ground again.

Said girl grinned and looked up from getting changed, grinning as she looked at Six.

"Yeah don't we know it." Kat shot back. "Honestly it should not take half an hour every morning to get ready."

"Wait you can get these results in half an hour?" Coco asked in amazement as she began playing with Six's hair, lifting it and holding it in various positions as she thought about what would look good.

"Wait it takes you longer?" Six asked in amazement.

"Hell yes!" Coco cried indignantly as she looked at Six's perfect hair, desperately trying to find any split or uneven strand.

"We often need an hour…" Velvet added with a week smile as Six, Kat and Ilia gaped at her.

"How do you have that time?" Ilia cried in shock.

"What you don't know? I mean… you are native to this planet, right?" Coco said with a small note of surprise as she looked at Ilia.

"Yes, but in case it never occurred to you, I didn't exactly have a lot of time to get ready in the morning." She shot back.

"Why? You never actually said where you came from." Coco responded.

Warning lights went off in Six's head, so she quickly blurted out:

"Hey here's an idea! How about we practise what we're doing tonight and **Not** talk about where we came from!"

In retrospect, Six should have realised that doing that would normally be a good way to draw extra attention on her. Thankfully Six was not alone in her drive to keep Ilia's past a secret, a certain orange AI had her back.

"Yeah I agree with Six." She said with as she materialised in the room, making sure to make it a slow fade in so the group wouldn't be startled. "It's not important anyway."

"Ookaay…" Coco muttered as she settled on what she wanted to do and begun to work on Six's hair. "Hey when you rebuilt her did you cheat with the hair?"

"Yeah… No." Seven explained, smiling weekly as she plonked herself down on Ilia's bed. "I didn't have the resources to fix anything, I was trying to restore the bodies of five people without anything spare to work with. In all honesty I'm kind of amazed I managed to do as well as I did."

"Trust me I'm not complaining." Six grinned while Coco sorted her hair out. "I'd rather have a few scars than a hole in my guts."

"Glad I made you happy." Seven said as she began to look over Kat (who was fully dressed and had her hair done, which wasn't as hard as it sounds because all she had to do was make sure her Pixie cut wasn't a mess and she'd be fine)

The AI then sent out a scanning wave over the fully dressed Spartan as her cape and boots vanished as a model began to load up around her.

"You're going as well?" Velvet asked, looking at the AI as her outfit began to form around her.

"Yeah, Jorge invited me, I mean I was kind of important to finding him again. Six wouldn't have had a clue were to look if not for me." Seven explained with an enormous grin.

"Yeah, then you disappeared inside my head for the rest of the trip." Six added with a smirk.

"I'm sorry, would you rather not know about what's going to happen in a week?" The AI shot back.

"I never said that." Six said as Coco finished up with her hair, pulling a mirror out to Show Six what she'd done.

"What do you think?" Coco asked with a self-assured smirk as Six's mouth fell open.

"Coco I love it." Six said with an enormous grin. Her hair had been tied up in two long smooth ponytails hanging low on her head and stopping about half way down her back. Each tail was tied by with a set of white ribbons (White Ribbons being a recurring theme of her current outfit.)

"Yeah, I might try that some time." Seven added as she examined Coco's work while her outfit finally finished forming.

Seven stood in her version of the bride's maid outfit. It was an extremely light shade of orange (so much so all you could see were minor hints of the AI's dominant colour) A tight fitting solderless dress that flared out massively in its relatively short skits (stopping a few inches above the knees) with sleeves that stopped about two thirds of the way down the arms and the small heals on each foot. The only odd thing about the outfit was the ribbons wrapped around each arm and leg.

Over all the outfit looked good on all of them (although as Six pointed out they were all young and in good shape, basically anything was going to work with them) The only one who'd needed to deviate from what the others wore was Kat. This was because light weight fabric was not cyborg friendly. So, she had solved the issue by having her selves removed and going with bare arms.

"I didn't think this kind of event would be your thing." Six commented as she tried to balance in her heals (Spoiler alert, she was not good at it)

"Well it's not, but I heard wedding receptions have the best food and I wanted to give it a try." The Ai explained. Kat was the first to spot the obvious problem with this line of thinking.

"Erm… you're an AI hologram… how are you going to eat anything?" She asked.

"Well the Remnant Pride had quite a few thigns on board for it. Technically I wasn't supposed to go digging around in the test labs…" She said with an enormous grin. "...but they no body stopped me, I got inside and found a new Hard Light Bee just waiting to be used."

"Light Bee?" Velvet asked, looking at the AI in confusion.

"This." Seven explained as the small metal sphere floated out of herself and hovered in front of the rabbit Faunus. "Basically, it's a mobile AI tank I get to control."

"And because it's hard light…" Kat realised.

"I get to touch shit!" Seven cried happily. "I didn't even realise it was hard light at first until I got brained at the pool! And with the insane amount of time I've spent studying the human body I know how to make myself a functioning set of taste buds! I get to eat shit! Do you have any idea how long I've wanted to try that!"

"I can imagine." Six said, before adding: "Try ice cream, it's the best… and chocolate… and cake…"

"Basically the worse it is for you the better it tastes." Coco explained with a grin.

"Dude I'm eating everything I can get my hands on!" Seven beamed. "Even hatred would be fun at this point!"

"Well if you want to eat you we might wanna get moving." Kat said, pointing towards the door. "We're cutting it close as it is."

…

The air trip to Vale didn't seam as long as it normally did, mostly because all of them were talking and having fun, that and the calm sky was perfect for the ship to fly in, so they were making good time.

Soon they were on the ground and getting into the waiting car to get them to the hotel they'd be hosting the party at/staying for the night.

None of them were that worried about being at the Vital festival for tomorrow, there matches weren't set up to happen until the day after tomorrow with there teams late matches (Carter, Emile, Six and Kat would be on a team with Jorge watching in the crowd, team CESK wasn't a good name, but it was better than nothing and it wasn't like the name was actually important)

When they got out of the car they found Ursus waiting in the lobby for them. Resplendent in a long pale blue dress, Daniel standing next to her in a black suit.

"Welcome! You look amazing!" Ursus called, beaming as the six girls walked in.

"You too." Coco said with a smile as she looked the older woman up and down. "How do you two stay in such good shape? I'd love to know when I hit that age."

"Hunting and lots of it!" Daniel declared, puffing out his chest (the small gut he had barley noticeable to the casual eye)

"I garden… a lot." Ursus grinned. "He helps, he hasn't been on a hunt in years."

"Excuse me! What do you call my efforts yesterday?" Daniel cried in mock outrage.

"Weeding dear." Ursus responded without missing a beat.

"That was a gruelling hunt against deadly foes trying to destroy your hard work!" Her husband responded as he gave his chest a good thump.

"Still weeding to the rest of the world." His wife shot back with a small smirk.

"Suddenly I understand how you and Professor Port ended up friends." Six muttered, remembering many a lecture on the man's previous hunts and wondering if the 'Brave warrior who befriended the frozen wastes' was standing in front of her… she also suspected the 'Frozen Wastes' was also standing next to him.

"What was that Miss Six?" A voice asked, causing her to spin around and lose her balance so Ilia had to catch her. Looking up she saw said Professor standing in front of her (although it was behind her when she started)

"Nothing!" Six blurted as she got back to her feet. "Wasn't expecting you to be here though…"

"Why wouldn't I be here? The wed… Reception for my best friend's daughter and her husband, why would I not be here?"

"Good point." Six said with a week grin. "You knew each other at beacon or something?"

"No, we met during some of our early hunts." Daniel explained. "I met my wife here when I accepted a mission on Atlas."

"He nearly got his head knocked off because he was too busy looking at my cleavage." Ursus smirked.

"You can't prove that!" He blurted, going red as he spoke.

"Well that answers that… where's Jorge and Lucy?" Kat asked, looking around for a sign of the pair.

"Lucy's getting ready." Jorge said as he walked down the stairs, his grey suit fitting perfectly (impressive given he was seven foot four inches normally) "Didn't want me to see her before she was done… said it was bad luck to see her in her dress before we were married…"

"But haven't you been married for months now?" Six asked with a confused note in her voice.

"Yes but it's the principle of the matter… apparently." Jorge muttered, still smiling despite the look of irritation on his face. "Also she needs help with something… and for some reason she wants your help Six."

"Really?" Six asked, looking at Jorge in confusion.

"Yup… don't ask me why. First floor fifth door along." He said, gesturing up the stairs.

Six nodded, heading up to the room Jorge had indicated.

"Lucy?" She asked, knocking on the door.

"You can come in!" She called. "It's not locked."

Six pushed the door open and immediately wondered why it wasn't locked.

Lucy was partially dressed, but apparently, she was having difficulty with the top half of her gown… and everything else to do with her torso.

When asked about it later Six would swear she was looking at her shredded torso (it was a tad bit less defined than it used to be… but only a tad) and not her exposed breasts.

"I… Wow!" Six gasped as she covered her face.

"Yeah, can you give me a hand?" She asked in an embarrassed tone.

"I… Sure… why wasn't the door locked?" She asked as she helped lace up the back of her dress.

"I unlocked it after I asked for help." She explained. "Not to worried about pervs when I can send them through a solid wall."

"That's fair enough." Six nodded. "But why did you want my help… couldn't literally anyone else help with this?" She asked as began to tie the back up at its highest point.

"I was curious about something, wasn't sure I'd get a chance to ask you about it later." She explained.

"Curious about what?" Six asked, wishing she knew how to make knots look good (she wasn't bothered about making them strong, she could do that)

"Do you have any plans for after the Vital festival?" Lucy asked as Six struggled with her knot.

"Graduate Beacon… not sure really…" Six muttered. "Kinda prioritised staying alive long enough to get that far."

"That's fair. But I do want to ask… How far do you want to go with Ilia?" Lucy inquired as Six finally figured out what she was doing.

"You mean the girl I've known for just over a month? I don't know… didn't think about it to be honest." Six explained. "I mean… I like her… a lot but I never really though about anything long term."

"That's fair, you're seventeen, you're aloud. I was just curious if you had any plan about the future."

"Not really…" Six muttered. "Should I know what I want in the future?"

"Fuck no!" Lucy cried, beaming as Six finished tying the troublesome knot. "I hated being told I had to know what I wanted out of life when I was a teen. Trust me we got it bad at Atlas; they really wanted us to join the Atlesian army… So, I went solo out of spite."

"Nice." Six giggled as she stood back to admire her work.

 _It's a bit tilted to the left._

 _Shut up it looks fine!_

 _You know you want to fix it._

…

 _Get on that shit._

 _Fine!_

Six moved forward again to sort her little mess out as Lucy said: "Yeah, I thought so too. Of course a Faunus going solo in Atlas was never going to go well… well I guess it did for me but still… not perfect."

"I can imagine…" Six muttered.

"No you can't, you actively saved a Faunus girls life and are currently going out with her, trust me Atlas was not like that twenty years ago." Lucy commented, a notable edge of spite in her voice as she spoke. "You would not believe how happy I was when I met Jorge and his reaction was 'Nice ears' Just getting a compliment for them form a human was insanely rare."

"Jorge was easily the most personable… Person. I knew before I got here." Six said with a grin.

"Six given what I know about where you came from not being a tactless ass is an achievement." Lucy said with a sly smirk.

"Technically that's the Spartan project." Six explained. "Normal people are capable of being… well normal."

"Fair enough, anyway I hope you have fun tonight, you have a lot to catch up on." Lucy said as she looked at herself in the mirror. Turning around she beamed at Six, her gown looked great on her and her hair looked great in the elegant bun she'd tied it in. "How do I look?"

"Great." Six said, admiring the dress.

 _You want one don't you._

 _Shut up._

 _Gonna take that as a yes._

 _Shut up!_

"Thank you." She said, beaming as she walked out of the room, stopping and turning around to say: "For the record, if you ever do go further with someone, you'll look beautiful as well."

"Thanks for the compliment, but you don't need to lie to me." Six said, grinning as she pointed at her face. "I know these aren't going anywhere."

"You'll still look great." Lucy shot back. "Besides you get to hide your face for half the ceremony."

"Yeah, the first, shorter half." Six responded, still grinning as she moved to the door. "Anyway, I think someone else should see you now."

"Yes, I think you're right." Lucy said, smiling as she followed Six out of the room, ready for the reception. Both party's planning on ingesting far more food than was healthy.


	81. Chapter 81

Chapter 81: If we knew what was happening right now…

Six held true to her vow to eat as much as humanly possible while enjoying the evening. This endeavour started when they first sat down to eat their meal (Apparently the party bit was going to get started once everyone had had a nice civilised meal. Six was disappointed with this, mostly because she found 'high quality food' that was enjoyed by adults was normally served in such small portions that you barely ate anything by the time you were done.)

"Maybe its to help them avoid putting on weight?" Ilia suggested from next to Six as the purple haired girl looked down glumly at her steak, or what had been a steak for the first ten minutes and was now nothing. It had been nice, she'd confirmed that when she ate it in under ten minutes, but she really needed more than that.

"Doesn't change the fact I'm still starving." Six muttered darkly as she began looking at one of Lucy's relatives and wondering if he'd notice if his bread rolls disappeared.

"Well there's a buffet in the dance hall once they're done with the speeches." Emile said, an equally grumpy look on his face as he too contemplated his empty plate.

"Ah, I remember when I was that age." The relative sitting next to Six said as he looked at the two grumpy/hungry Spartans. "I could eat everything in front of me and still stay in shape."

"You were always a fat prat." A Bear Faunus sitting next to Emile shot at the speaker, grinning as he flexed his thick muscles.

Six was sure of something as the two of them argued: She could tell which person was related to each of Lucy's parents. Ursus' relatives had one common theme among them; Blonde, muscular and with some kind of bear trait. Daniels family however was interesting. The younger members Six could spy at different tables were all in good shape and held themselves in a very proud manor which persisted through every member of the group, it was just the amount they could back it up directly correlated to how old they were.

It was a fun game to look around at everyone and identify these traits… mostly because Six's microscopic meal was gone she had very little else to do other than stare at them.

Because this event was a bit rushed and hadn't had as much planning time as it should, meaning the guests seating was distributed at almost complete random. The only exception to this was the head table. Which had Jorge, Lucy, her parents, Carter and Kat sitting there. Carter because he was the best man and Kat because… Well it was probably girlfriend privileges, no one was really sure; the two of them were close and had definitely 'Done the deed' so they were probably a thing… or just really close friends… point is there was a spare seat and no point wasting it.

Six, Ilia and Emile had ended up assigned to a random table with a handful of Lucy's relatives while Coco, Velvet and Seven were sitting at a different table.

On that note when Six got board of playing 'Guess which family they come from' she decided to watch Seven. Actually, she'd been doing that from the second the Hard-Light AI had started eating, mostly because it had been absolutely hilarious to watch. (Six would also use this as another point against the portion sizes on the grounds she could watch Seven, then eat and still be done eating within ten minutes)

Seven took… an almost disturbing amount of joy with her first mouthful. Having no reference for flavour or taste Seven had closed her eyes and picked something at random. And apparently both loved it and detested it at the exact same time.

It was fascinating; she'd take a mouth full with the most delightful look of excitement on her face, her mouth stretched in an enormous smile as she bit down. Then the second the food made contact with her tongue her entire face would scrunch up in disgust and revulsion as she swallowed. To which she'd burst into another huge grin and eat another mouth full.

It was fascinating to watch but it was boring and eventually someone noticed she's spent the entire meal only looking at her friends or the table, with the rest of her time spent deeply examining the table cloth.

"Hey you okay purple?" The muscular bear Faunus asked as he looked at her.

"Yeah, why would you ask?" Six asked while looking at her plate, as if she could will more food onto her plate by staring at it.

"Well…" He began.

"Karl don't…" The woman sitting next to him muttered as she looked at him, a look of urgency on her face.

"…Lucy mentioned one of her guests had a bit of a messed up face…" 'Karl continued, ignoring the girls request and continuing.

"She also said not to make a big deal out of it." The woman muttered darkly as she glared at him.

"…So I was just wondering if it was you." He explained as he lent back in his chair, a smile on his face as Six let out a laugh and said:

"Yes, it is; would you like to see?"

"Yes!" He cried, slightly to eager for everyone else at the tables taste.

"Karl!" The girl next to him hissed, her claws sliding out of the back of her surprisingly hairy hands.

"It's okay." Six said with a grin as she lifted her head of the table to look at Karl. "What do you think?"

"God girl what the hell happened to you!?" Karl said, his mouth agape as he looked at Six's face. To his surprise she just laughed and said:

"Well I can't give you an exact answer to that, however I will say this: I got off a lot better than the other guy."

It was at that point the guest were forced to listen through the various speeches and finally aloud to head into the dance room. Or for the bit Six cared about: The room with the food in it.

It was a brutal massacre and very little escaped her rampage (that which did was promptly devoured by Emile) and then she got to turn her wrath on the dance floor.

It gave Coco a major fit of the giggles to learn that Six had somehow become even worse at dancing; although Ilia was no prize winner so they sort of worked (in the sense of if you danced near them you had a very real chance of getting your foot trodden on if you were within a two meter radius of them)

"Good god you two are bad at this!" Kat called as Carter lead her next to them with their dancing which was a fair sight better than Six and Ilia's. As in they had a clue about what the hell they were doing.

"How the hell are you two this good?" Six asked as Ilia once again trod on her foot (They'd both done the same thing multiple times so neither of the pair was holding a grudge)

"It's called research, you might want to try it sometime." Carter said with a slight smirk on his face as he looked at them.

"When did you get the time to do any research?" Six asked as Ilia took her turn to step on Six's foot.

"While you two were watching that show last night, seriously what the hell was happening in that last episode?" Kat asked, finally able to attempt to get an answer to what the bat buggering hell those two had been watching last night.

"The protagonist flew up to space with a bright red string outfit to fight her evil alien worshipping mother, who she beat by throwing herself on a big spike and telling the aliens to piss off." Six explained as she tried to twirl Ilia like she'd seen the other pairs doing (it worked to some degree although both of them did stumble and nearly crash into some of the other dancers)

"Then her sentient outfit scarified himself by burning up in the planets atmosphere to stop her from dying, then her sister and all her friends caught her." Ilia added.

"Because that's totally believable." Kat muttered, Remnant had no respect for all the laws of physics as it was; she didn't need it's fiction making it worse.

"Kat I've fallen from orbit before." Six pointed out, stopping her dancing to avoid hurting anyone else as she looked at her.

"You had a suit of advanced power Armor on, that girl was naked and there's no way…" She begun before Carter interrupted her.

"Kat what did we talk about?" Carter asked, giving her a firm look.

"…" Kat muttered, so quietly what she said was completely inaudible.

"Kat." Carter said as he gave her a light elbow to the guts.

"It's just a show, I should really just relax." Kat muttered.

"Hey Six!" A voice called from across the room, a desperate note of panic in her voice as a scared/embarrassed Rabbit Faunus called from across the room.

Looking over Six could see Velvet trying to support an extremely drunk looking Coco.

"The hell has she been drinking?" Six asked as she approached the pair, wondering how she missed the alcohol given she'd been on an intense raid of the buffet and hadn't seen any there.

"Thriss!" Coco declared, lifting her skirt and showing of a row off about five bottles of whisky (She was also showing off more but thankfully no one really saw that who didn't know her)

"Coco!" Velvet hissed, grabbing her girlfriends skirt and pulling it down with a red blush on her face.

"Awwweee… Am I masceshing the cwute wittle wabbit sad?" Coco asked, staggering and falling into Velvet, who went red as Coco's face implanted in her chest.

"I think you should get her to your room." Ursus commented, walking over and seeing the awkward scene in front of her.

"Yes I think we should." Velvet said, a week smile on her face as Coco tried to pull herself to her feet.

"But wuh pwarty…" Coco pouted.

Velvet rolled her eyes, an expression that clearly read: This has happened before, I got this.

"Come with me, I think we should have a private party."

"Waayyy! Sweep ovaarr!" Coco cried, grabbing Six's arm and holding it tight.

"Erm…" Six muttered, looking around as Coco tried to drag her off.

"You can go if you like." Jorge said from behind, causing Six to jolt and look as the seven-foot four man managed to sneak up on her, his smiling wife standing next to him as she added:

"Yeah, trust me we don't mind if you want to go now." Lucy added as Coco staggered to the side and nearly fell into one of Ursus' cousins. "The foods all gone, and I really think you need to get her our of here before she pukes."

"Good point." Six muttered as Ilia nodded next to her.

Velvet nodded as she grabbed Coco and pulled her onto her back. Struggling for a few seconds she eventually stood up, the drunk girl supported on her back.

"I dwont wanna go…" Coco slurred drunkenly.

"Come on, sleep over time." Velvet said, smiling as she set off, With Six and Ilia on either side of her to catch her if she staggered or Coco threw her off balance.

"Whoo! Gay sweep over!" Coco cried as the four of them set off.

"Velvet if we all wake up in the same bed…" Ilia muttered.

"Hey that sounds fun!" Coco cried. "Weettts do wat!"

"NO!" Three voices cried out as they carried her out of the dance room towards Velvet and Coco's room, getting ready to spend the night there if they had to. (And in Six and Ilia's case, hoping there first time didn't end up being a drunken four way with two of their friends)

…

Meanwhile, far off in the untamed and uninhabited continent the sun had set a few hours ago, and yet the girl in the castles main throne room had been up for hours and had no intention of heading to bed anytime soon.

Like Six this girl suffered form half her face being deformed, a vivid un ignorable slash to the right side of her face forever burned into her. Her right eye gone forever as she fought against the training bots (otherwise known as some Promethean's who had nothing better to do)

Emerald was practising, practising harder than she ever had before. Her entire body was drenched in sweat as she had been pushing her body all day and had no intentions of stopping.

She had no intention of stopping what she was doing, she couldn't.

 _She needs to pay, they all do. I won't let any of them live. Its their fault she's gone., I won't let them get away with this. I won't let them continue! I will do it! I have too! Cinder…_

She was hacking and slashing as fast as she could, firing her guns at every target that came up, including the alien who walked into the room behind her.

Thankfully for her Turak was not particularly bothered by the green haired girl shooting at him. He'd taken worse and the shields his lady had given him could take far more than this, they'd been able to survive a powerful explosion from point blank range (The only Reason that dratted Chameleon had been able to hurt him was because she planted the explosive onto him directly, meaning the explosion was set off inside his shield and as such was unable to stop it.) A few measly gun shots from a human weapon wasn't going to do anything to him.

"Turak, I'm… I…" Emerald said, fear evident in her face as she backed up from the Elite as he approached her, his Grimm arm and missing mandible even more disturbing the closer he got to her.

"It is okay young one, if you managed to hurt me I'd turn my blades on myself." Turak said as he noted the puddles of sweat littered around the girl and where she'd been working out.

"Thanks." She muttered darkly as she went to reload her guns, before the Elite stopped her, grabbing her guns with her hands and throwing them across the room.

" _Hey!"_ She cried as her weapons hit the opposing windows.

"My Lady has seen fit to give you a gift." He said dully, his tone indicating he'd rather be doing literally anything else.

He then pulled two items off the back of his armor and handing them to the green haired girl.

She looked down at the items. They looked like her old guns, except the blades seamed absent, the barrel was quite a bit larger and the glowing energy that all of Salem's tech appeared to have on it.

"Why…?" Emerald muttered as she took the weapons, getting a feel for their weight.

"She believes your current weapons are unfit for your goals." He said dully, barley looking at her as he spoke.

"Okay…" Emerald muttered as she jolted suddenly, having found what the button on the base of the guns handles did as the glowing orange blades sprang into life. The head they radiated indicating they'd cut through anything like it was paper.

"…Is it true?" Turak asked, still not looking at her even if he did sound somewhat interested in what her answer was going to be.

"Is what true?" The tired girl asked as she took aim and fired the new weapons out, blasting the target she had previously been blowing holes in. There was nothing left as the smoke dissipated.

"You intend to kill the Demon known as Noble Six." Turak elaborated.

"I'm going to kill them all." Emerald growled through gritted teeth.

"You were close too Cinder the inept…" Turak said before Emerald got his attention again as she span around and dug her blades into his legs. The shields should have stopped them, but they weren't the best against laser weaponry. Disintegration rounds: yes. Bullets: Yes. Energy swords: they wouldn't cut through him, but they could burn. However, in his Lady's usual perfect craftsmen ship Emeralds new weapons had no difficulty slipping through them. They didn't hurt him too badly, but he could feel the blades burn as they dug into him.

"Don't you dare!" Emerald growled before Turak grabbed her with his Grimm arm and lifted the green haired girl into the air.

"Know your place." He said coldly. Looking the struggling girl in her red eyes.

Turak did gain some degree of respect for the girl, she didn't beg or plead, she just tried to stab him in his arms. He would let no harm come to his lady's gifts, so he dropped her before the blades could dig in.

"I don't care where I am, I'm going to kill them, I have to!" She cried out as she struggled for breath, the words coming out in a gasping retching way. "And don't you dare insult her!"

"She died because she was over confident, and her own power backfired on her." Turak responded. "She was an idiot."

Emerald sprang to life, trying to stab him again, only to get back handed by Turak as she crashed into the nearest wall.

"Don't you dare…"

"Or what?" He asked, stomping towards her and looking down, the height difference between he two evident as he loomed over her. "What do you intend to do?"

As he spoke he raised his left foot and brought it down on her, keeping her pinned to the ground.

Once again, she didn't beg or plead for him to stop, she just tried to get out.

"Why does such a pathetic creature mean so much to you?" Turak asked, actually doing her the courtesy of looking at her as he spoke this time.

"… I owe everything to her." Emerald growled. "Because of her suddenly I wasn't starving, suddenly I had a roof over my head, I had people who cared, I…"

"So you were her pet?" Turak asked, seriously fighting the urge to laugh.

"I'd have been anything she asked of me." Emerald responded. "I did everything she asked and I would do it again in a heartbeat."

"I think you will find a few problems with that plan." Turak pointed out.

"I don't care! I'd do anything to save her! To have her back again… for a few seconds… to tell her…"

Emerald couldn't keep talking at that point, she just let the tears flow down her face as she lay on the ground, pinned under Turak's foot.

"You are insane." He commented, wondering if he should just crush her guts and put her out of her misery.

"I found a purpose because of her, I found respect for myself again… I found someone I…" Emerald couldn't get the last word out as she lay there, but she did add: "You know what it's like…"

"We are nothing alike you!" Turak snapped, looking down at her as he applied more pressure with his foot.

"Then why do you follow her?" Emerald asked, a fire burning in her eyes as she looked at him. "I saw you when you arrived, lost and confused. Nothing but a few stragglers willing to follow your pathetic ass as you approached. Tell me, what was the plan? Did you have one? Because before you saw her you were a pathetic bunch I'll tell you that!"

"I am vital to my lady!" He cried in rage as he looked down at her, fighting the urge to crush her, if only because her death was beneath him, this human didn't deserve any kind of respect in her death, she wasn't worthy of an Elite ending her existence.

"Oh yeah! So vital she sent you to make a fucking trade deal!" Emerald cried.

She wasn't being brave or cocky here. She'd just realised that Turak was probably going to kill her and if that was going to happen anyway she wasn't going to beg.

" _It's okay, really. Get off the floor, it is unworthy of you."_

" _But…"_

" _You are with me, you are better than that. So stop being so pathetic and hold your head high. I don't recruit pathetic people. You are better than that. You understand?"_

"Face it, you were nothing but a pawn to her at first." Emerald gasped as she tried to talk through the immense pain in her guts.

"I would happily be a pawn for a goddess such as her." Turak growled.

"And I would happily do anything for the woman who pulled my life out of the gutter, so if you insult her I will do everything in my power to make sure you regret it." Emerald growled. Empty as the threat may be given her situation she would now bow to his will.

Turak stared down at the girl for a few seconds before releasing his foot, allowing her to breath and stager to her feet again.

"You will not win." He said simply from the centre of the room, turning to look back at her.

"What?" She asked as her breathing returned to normal.

"The way you fight at the moment you will fall to the Demons." He elaborated as he raised a hand to the side of his helmet. "Garok get down here."

"Who…?" Emerald began to ask before another Elite walked in. He was slimmer than Turak, sporting a slimmer build with significantly less muscle than his commander.

The most notable thing about him though was his armor. It was completely different to any other Elites. It was silver, made from many smaller plates that over lapped. It also appeared to have no technology outside of it's shields, it was just a suit of primitive (if highly detailed with plenty of intricate markings and swirls) armor.

Now Emerald thought about it she had seen this Elite around before, he was seen eating with the grunts sometimes and frequently took abuse form the other Elites.

"She fights with her blades like an infant." Turak said, ignoring Emerald as he talked to the General. "Correct this. I will not have Our Lady suffer under someone so pathetic."

"Yes Turak." He said, bowing as his leader left the room before turning to Emerald. "Get ready." He said simply, pulling his Energy knifes out as Emerald ignited her new blades.

The two of them looked at each other for a split second before they charged.

 _I'm going to do it, for you and for me. Cinder… I promise you. I will not bow to anyone! Only you had that honour and I am going to make sure they pay for taking you! You hear that Noble Team! I'm going to end you!_


	82. Chapter 82

Chapter 82: Lonely

Coco, as it turned out would not go easily. Despite being completely smashed and wanting to have a sleep over the girl was unintentionally putting up a fight every single step of the way.

Not because she was trying to stop the party's travel, she was just working on ways to 'improve' the sleep over.

"Heey… We shwood get shrum new sleep atiarre…" She said, looking out off the windows in the lobby to the various stores across the street.

"Coco you hate that store." Velvet pointed out as she lugged the girl towards the large stairs that led to the second floor. They were large and grand and the kind of thing a princess would walk down during the big ball scene.

Personally, Six couldn't help but think it was a waste, you didn't need a set of stairs that big for anything unless you wanted to drive a truck up it.

But hey, it was a stair case; there was no point causing a fuss.

"Whaa… No I dwont…" She slurred, trying to grab the banister to keep them downstairs. "I wov their… stwuff…"

"You described their stock as, and I quote: 'A collection of the most disgusting, trashy, bullcrap ever pulled out of a cow's distended rectum.'" Velvet pointed out, nodding at Six as she pulled Coco's hand off the banisters.

"Cows are cute…" Coco muttered as Velvet continued her efforts to pull her girlfriend up the stairs.

"Rabbits are better." Velvet said as she lugged her up the stairs.

"I don't know, I got a thing for Chameleons personally." Six said with a smirk as they moved up into the hall way to their room.

They both had the same room due to more rushed planning on Lucy's part. Not that Six blamed her, this thing whole was rushed, and it wasn't that big a deal; they still got a large room with two double beds in it.

Or at least it wouldn't have been if Coco wasn't blitzed out of her mind.

Coco on her own was very personable and outgoing… Add about five bottles of whiskey to that and well…

"Hey Sirix! What happens when you and Iliaarr make wout?" She asked from Velvets back as Ilia got to work opening the door.

"The fuck do you mean?" Six asked as she kicked her heals off, glad to be free of the things as she entered the room and Velvet staggered in, moving towards one of the double beds in the room and dumping the intoxicated girl on her back onto it before heading out of the room.

Coco (apparently not realising she had been dumped on the bed) explained: "I mean, when wou and Ilia go at it… does she change colour?"

"I… No." Six said, looking down at the girl as she rolled over to look at Ilia.

"Aww… I was sure something blould happen…" Coco muttered, looking over at Ilia as the girl perched herself on the other bed in the room.

"Well it doesn't." Six said.

"Are you sure?" Coco asked, pushing herself up and staggering towards Ilia, grabbing the girl around her shoulders to stand up straight.

"Yes, Coco…" Six said, her voice getting slightly more aggressive as she wondered whether she and Ilia were going to have to fight Coco off.

"I just wanna bly somethang!" Coco said with a pout on her face.

Before Six or Ilia could do anything, Coco sprang forward and grabbed both of Ilia's boobs.

Six started to move, but it really wasn't needed. Ilia's skin turned a bright shade of red as her leg exploded out, sending Coco flying into the wall as Six ran over to her.

"You okay?" Six asked as Ilia's skin returned to normal.

"Yeah, I'm fine… Six." Ilia muttered, smiling weekly as Coco clutched her head in pain.

"Yes?" Six muttered as she looked over to Ilia.

"The next time Coco gets drunk at a party that's our cue to leave, got it?" The Chameleon girl said with a grin.

"You'd be amazed how many people have that philosophy." Velvet said with a smile as she returned with a bucket.

"What's that for?" Six asked as Velvet set the bucket down next to Coco's side of the bed.

"You'll know in about three, two, one…" The Rabbit girl smiled as Coco suddenly put her hands to her mouth and vomited, bringing up the portion of the buffet she'd managed to get away from Six's rampage.

"Oh god that reeks…" Ilia muttered, backing away as Coco went to heave again.

"Not the worst thing I've smelt." Six muttered, a memory of a particularly nasty training match coming back to her.

"Velvet…" Coco muttered, looking up at her as the brown haired girl gingerly picked up the bucket.

"Yeah?" She asked as Coco looked at her.

"I feel like crap…"

"Like this doesn't end up happening every single night we go out." Velvet smiled.

"I'm blorry…" Coco said as she tried to push herself up. "I think I need to use the bwath room…"

Velvet offered her arm and took Coco under her arm, although her larger size did mean she was struggling again, so Ilia went over to help lug her to the bathroom.

They were inside it for a few seconds before Six heard the sound of retching again… promptly followed by two feminine cries.

The first one consisted of: "Argh! Coco!"

The second consisted of: "Oh for fucks sake!"

Six sprinted off her bed and ran into the room, seeing what was going on the second she entered what had happened. Mostly that Coco hadn't made it to the toilet before throwing up again and Ilia and Velvet had had the bad luck of being caught in the middle.

"I'm sorrrry…" Coco slurred as the girls let go of her and she flopped to the ground, heaving herself towards the toilet.

"It's okay… urgh these dresses are going to be ruined." Velvet muttered, walking over to the bath tub and turning both taps on. "Come on we need to soak them."

Ilia nodded, pulling her own dress off and throwing it into the bath tub as Velvet did the same. She then walked over to her wash bag and pulled a bottle of something out, pouring a cap full and adding it to the water.

"Sorry to anyone who wanted a bath tonight." She said as looked at the garments. "but vomit does not come out easily."

"You seam just a little too prepared for this." Six noted from the door way.

"This is not the first time Coco's gone overboard. A party like this and she was guaranteed to take it to eleven." Velvet explained. "Thought I better be prepared."

"Guessing there's some Ibuprofen in that bag as well?" Six asked, glancing at Velvets bag.

"You would be correct." Velvet said with a smile. "Can you keep an eye on her while we get changed? Just in case something happens."

"Sure." Six nodded as Velvet and Ilia went to leave the bathroom.

"Oh, and could you get her dress of and put it in the tub?" Velvet added before she left the room.

"I'd have thought undressing Coco would be your thing." Six commented with a smirk.

"Not when she's covered in puke." Velvet responded with a bigger smirk as she shut the door.

"Well played…" Six muttered before she walked over to Coco, who'd looked a little spaced out since she threw up on their girlfriends.

"Where is she…" Coco murmured as she lay on the ground, slumped against the toilet to support herself.

"Where's who?" Six asked as she reached for the zip on the back of Coco's dress.

"Vel… where is she…" Coco explained as she looked up at Six as she began to pull on the zip.

"In the other room…" Six said slowly as Coco began to cry.

"She left me…"

"No she didn't, she's just getting chan…"

"She left me!" Coco wailed, crying as she fell over, startling Six who was only just able to catch her.

"Coco Velvet hasn't left you!" Six said, trying to pull Coco back into a sitting position.

"She's gone! Not again!" Coco continued, apparently not hearing Six's reassurance.

"Coco you're fine!"

"No I'm not! I'm a freak and a terrible person, I, I!"

"Coco!" Six cried, slapping the brunet around the face as she slumped over backwards.

 _Did you just slap me?_

 _No you dumb ass, she slapped Coco, you're a voice in her head. How the fuck is she meant to slap you?_

 _Well it still hurt!_

 _What! No, it didn't!_

"Will you two please shut up!?" Six yelled as she looked at Coco, who had tears flowing form her eyes now. "You really aren't helping!"

"She's gone… she's gone again… It's my fault… like… Mommy…" Coco muttered before passing out.

"Velvet…" Six called as the rabbit girl walked in, wearing her night attire (It was actually the one she'd worn when the two of them were trying to figure out Six's orientation, not her normal sleeping attire but Coco had insisted)

"She'll be fine, she gets like this sometimes, so long as she wakes up next to me she'll be fine." Velvet explained as Six pulled her into a sitting position.

…

The next morning seamed to come the second Six's head hit the pillow. She just woke up feeling fully refreshed. Yawning and stretching as she looked down at the girl next to her.

Ilia lay next to her, her chest slowly rising and falling as slumbered, while she might lack proper nightwear (Or anything to wear while she was asleep) apparently blessed with a normal teen's sleeping schedule. Six couldn't help but groan as she looked over at the clock resting on her bedside cabinet, which read: 9:45.

 _That's way too early!_

 _Urgh… what are we going to do now?_

"Wonder where Coco is." Six answered, looking across at the bed next to them and noticing a distinct lack of her best friend, Even Velvet the Second had been moved onto Coco's night stand.

Spying a crack of light coming from the bathroom Six carefully slipped out of bed (careful not to disturb Ilia as she did) and slipped into the room.

Inside Coco was up, dressed in her slightly see through night gown she was carefully examining the three dresses they'd thrown into soak last night. (Six was glad her dress was the one that came out the best in this mess) and hanging them on the shower rail to dry.

"And I thought I was up early." Six commented, causing Coco to jolt and whirl around as Six shut the door.

"God dammit Six!" She hissed. "You gave me a heart attack."

"No I didn't. How you holding up?" Six asked as she looked at Coco who shrugged.

"I've been hung over so often this isn't that big a deal anymore." Coco said with a week grin. "Wish I had something for it though…"

Six responded by walking over to Velvets wash bag and extracting the Ibuprofen and handing it to Coco.

"You need a glass or anything…" Six began as Coco popped that tablets out, threw them into her mouth before cupping hand full of water from the tap and swallowing them.

"I'm good." She said with a small smile. "Wished these things were instantaneous though…"

"Well I can't do anything about that." Six said, shrugging weekly as she looked at her. "You okay?"

"In about half an hour sure." She said, her usual smile back on her face.

"No, I meant… last night…" Six began before Coco butted in:

"Oh right… Look I was drunk, it probably didn't mean anything…"

"Coco why were you so broken up about someone leaving?" Six asked, looking at the girl with concern in her face.

"I wasn't…" Coco muttered, weekly trying to end the conversation.

"You broke down crying." Six countered. "That doesn't sound like nothing, trust me I'm an expert."

"Six really I'm fine, I was drunk. I know your not used to that but let me tell you…"

"Coco." Six butted in. "That wasn't nothing."

"I'm telling you…" She began before Six cried out:

"Coco I know you're usually the one to help me when my brain goes to shit. But, please… Could you at least try to let me do the same?"

"I… Look, you know how I said my parents weren't around me very much?" Coco sighed, looking at Six though her hand as she massaged her head.

"Yeah?" Six asked. While she wasn't sure where this was going she could take a guess.

"Well they weren't around each other much either… and I was the reason for that." Coco explained.

"What do you mean?" Six began before Coco explained:

"Let's just say I got my randy side from my dad and when he was with her he should have been more careful with." She explained. "Neither of them ever really wanted a kid… at least Dad was willing to roll with it."

"What about your mom?" Six asked.

"She… put up with me. For a bit anyway." Coco muttered darkly.

"For a bit?" Six inquired, wondering just how bad this story was going to go.

"Until she caught me making out with Dawn." Coco explained. "Apparently that was too much for her. Now all I see of her is her name on the support checks she's legally obliged to send."

"Dawn?" Six asked in confusion.

"Oh, yeah… I went to an all-girls school when I was younger, lots of experimenting. She walked in on us while we where in the middle of doing that." Coco explained. "Good god I hate her."

"Seams justified." Six muttered darkly.

"Yes it is… And to think I was angry at myself when that happened… God I was a fucking dumb ass." Coco explained. "Can't believe I tried to get a boyfriend after that… Urgh!" She shuddered.

"I'll bet that went well." Six said with a smirk.

"About as well as you and social interaction used to." Coco shot back. "I am so glad I stopped that when I did… If I'd lost it with anyone other than Velvet…"

"And you can stop talking now." Six blurted, going red as she tried to look at something that wasn't Coco. "I don't want to hear about your sexual history!"

"Are you sure!?" Coco asked with an insane grin on her face.

"Very." Six said, backing towards the door.

"Are you really sure, I could give you some pointers for when you and Ilia want to move to that point…"

"Velvet your girlfriends trying to tell me about you two fucking!" Six yelled, causing Velvet to jolt awake and look at Coco, yelling:

"Dammit Coco not again!"


	83. Chapter 83

Chapter 83: What's the plan

Six was surprised that she found something to do after Coco and Velvet started arguing about what was and wasn't appropriate to talk about with friends.

Granted she wished it had been something she could have done with Ilia, but private talks with General Ironwood and Ozpin were not something you could invite your girlfriend to. So she said good bye and promised she was going to be back as soon as she could she set off.

That being said she wasn't going to be alone at this meeting as ever other member of Noble Team had been invited along as well.

"So Jorge, how was your night?" Emile asked with a grin as he looked at the taller man.

"You're asking this this now?" Said taller man asked incredulously, looking at his friend in shock.

"Well when else am I going to ask it?" Emile countered, smirking. "I mean based on what I heard…"

"Emile that's enough." Carter responded as the elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the office.

The second they walked into the room they noticed the people inside it. Ozpin sat behind his desk drinking from his favourite mug, Glynda was looking at the door as the five of them entered, Qrow was perched on Ozpins desk drinking from his hip flask (As if he ever wasn't) Amber was leaning against one of the walls, Ironwood was looking out the window at his fleet and displayed on a view screen was Roman Torchwick, lazing around and twirling his hat on the end of his cane.

"Welcome, thank you for coming at such an early hour." Ozpin said, greeting the team as they walked in.

"Early? I've been up for hours." Emile commented.

"Well some of us have found a liking for sleep." Six commented, before turning to the adults in the room and saying: "I take it we're here to discuss what we're going to do at the end of the festival?"

"Correct." Ironwood said. "We have a rough idea of what's going to happen based on Romans information, Although the plan has most likely changed since then."

"I can guarantee you it has." Seven said as she did her usual trick of appearing out of nowhere. "I somehow doubt her original plan had anything to do with Forerunner tech."

"She did start making changes to the plan after those alien pricks showed up." Roman said off handedly. "She wanted their tech and sent me out to trade for it… Waste of effort on her part seeing as they just gave her all their crap."

"I disagree, I think you trading for stuff was very important." Six commented. "If you hadn't I would never have found Kat's armor."

"I'm so glad I could help." Roman smiled as he leant back in his chair.

"Is that because you're now relying on them to save your worthless hide?" Qrow asked.

"This bickering isn't helping." Jorge butted in. "Let's get down to planning, Roman, do you have any idea why she'd want the Covenant stuff?"

"Simple my large friend, Time. I have no idea what her original plan was but as far as I can tell it was because it was faster than her original plan." Roman explained.

"Yeah… I don't get her plan either." Seven commented form the side. "I've been doing as much digging around as I can, but she doesn't have much in the way of a computer network and recently everything just shut down, I couldn't get back in; it was like the door was closed on me…"

"So we have no idea what she's planning?" Six asked, looking at the AI for conformation.

"No, I do have some useful information." Seven shot back.

"Like what?" Qrow asked, looking at the AI, who grinned and brought up a bunch of screens around her.

"Numbers." She said with a grin. "The last entry I was able to get a hold of indicated they were having technical issues, so these should be the final amount of Prometheans and Covenant coming at us."

"What about Grimm?" Ironwood inquired.

"That's hard to say." Seven explained, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. "There always seam to be a lot of them around her and the few satellite scans I was able to get indicated she was making more."

"But if there at her home base how is she going to bring them here?" Amber questioned from the side, looking at the images Seven was displaying of the horde of Grimm roaming around.

"Wait you know where her base is!" Ironwood blurted, looking at Seven in shock. "Why aren't we planning to go over there, if we send the fleet…"

"They'd get destroyed on the approach and all of them would die." Seven shot back. "Trust me, I've tried sending probes down there, shielded probes. Anything she doesn't want to get in isn't getting in. We can't stop Salem there yet; we need to destroy her forces at the festival and then move in."

"If we're going to confront her at the Vital festival how are we going to get the crowd out? Everyone in the stadium is going to be in serious danger." Amber pointed out. "Salem's forces are extremely dangerous, remember three of them were enough to stop me."

"Well on the plus side one of them is dead, so that's nice." Six pointed out.

"Six she was torn and twisted to shreds in extreme agony, how is that nice?" Amber cried, looking at the purple haired Spartan in shock.

"You can't hold a grudge, can you? Anyway, seeing as she took my Semblance and permanently scared half my face… Yeah her dyeing in the most painful way possible makes me happy." Six responded.

"This is the least focused tactical session I've ever been a part of." Ironwood muttered as he looked at the two bickering girls.

"I know, if they were all like this I might actually show up to more of them." Qrow added as he took another swig from his hipflask.

"We're getting off track." Ozpin interjected.

"No please let this go on, this shit's hilarious." Roman said from the viewscreen.

"No, Seven what sort of numbers are we talking about?" Ozpin said; his tone firmly indicating they were going to stay on track this time.

"Surviving Covenant forces: About seven hunters, sixty Grunts, twenty Jackals, ten Brutes, five Elites and one Arbiter… whatever the hell that is, you guys have any ideas about that?" Seven recited, turning to Noble team as she asked her question.

"Never heard of it." Six said dully.

"Never seen one of them before." Emile commented. "Trust me, I'd remember fighting one of them."

"You would, but yeah I've never heard of them." Jorge added.

"I don't think it's a known species in the covenant… Could be a title of some kind." Kat muttered.

"So, it's just another Covenant member with a title? You think it's Turak?" Carter asked, turning to Seven.

"No, he's listed under the Elites, this Arbiter is listed as being called 'Garok'" Seven explained.

"That sounds like an Elite name…" Kat muttered as she looked down, rubbing her chin in contemplation.

"So we've got another Elite to kill, big deal. What about those Promethean guys? What are we dealing with there?" Emile said, cutting in on the others speculation in an effort to get to the actually useful information.

"About one hundred knights, fifty crawlers of various types and about fifty watchers, they fly so watch out for them as they're hard to hit and take out. She also seems to have created about two hundred Armigers… or flat out robots, still a pain though."

"Okay so that's five hundred and three hostiles." Kat said, seemingly counting on her fingers even though she was smart enough to do that kind of maths easily.

"Plus a near infinite amount of Grimm ally's." Amber pointed out.

"But can she move the Grimm?" Ozpin asked, looking at Seven again.

"No idea, lets assume she can." Seven responded.

"Actually something you need to know, part of her plan involved the mountain… and what's inside it." Roman said off handedly from the screen.

"What's inside the mountain?" Six asked as she looked at Roman.

"A dragon." Roman said with a grin.

"Oh come on…" Ironwood groaned. "…That is nothing more than a legend, there isn't a Dragon in the mountain…"

"And yet girls with magical powers is real." Amber pointed out. "A dragon inside a mountain isn't that unbelievable."

"Given she was intending to make Cinder wake it up for her as a major part of her plan then I think we can say it's real." Roman pointed out as Neo silently giggled at the General.

"Okay, how was she going to make Cinder wake it up?" Ironwood asked, rubbing his forehead as he looked at Roman in a way that indicated he'd rather do literally anything else.

"No idea, I just know she had to be there to do it." Roman explained.

"Well I don't think we have to worry about her waking it up… Given she's kind of dead… I'm still happy about that by the way." Six said with an enormous grin.

"Because it's totally impossible for someone else to wake the damn thing up." Qrow pointed out, leaning back as he emptied his flask.

"So a lot of enemy forces and a giant dragon… Great, so now we know what the hell we're going up against what's our plan to counter all of it?" Emile asked from the side.

"First of all, how do we get everyone out of the stadium?" Glynda asked, finally speaking now they were at the planning stage and not just bickering.

"Have them walk to the exits?" Six asked in confusion, causing everyone to stare at her… even her fellow Spartans. "I'm missing something, again aren't I?"

"Six… the tournament details… did you pay any attention to the bit about how to get to it?" Carter slowly asked as he looked at what used to be the most feared Spartan three ever.

"I know we need to get to it via an airship, but I figured that was because it was on an island and boat trips are slow as fuck." Six said.

"No, that's not the reason for why we need an airship to get there…" Carter slowly said.

"The Vital Stadium is a floating structure that orbits the kingdom holding the tournament." Ozpin explained, causing Six's brain to break.

"I, I… No." Six said, her eyes going blank as she looked around in desperation. "No, No! I'm sorry but no! The Stadium flys… Why in Remnant… What was the point of it flying! That's just begging for trouble! We, no we can't… I… Why would you design it that way!?"

"So it's not built on any land so no kingdom can ever claim it as theirs, it's for everyone." Ozpin explained.

"I… I… Fine." Six said, throwing her arms up into the air and crying out: "So, does this place have escape pods or anything?"

The silence of every other Remnant native in the room caused everyone else to look in shock.

"I… Who designed this fucking thing!?" Six gasped.

"We'll make sure there are enough ships docked at anyone time that everyone can get off." Ironwood said firmly from the side. "It's possible she could attack early so we should be ready for everyone to get out on any day."

"Okay, that makes sense." Six sighed as she looked down. "But what about fighting back, once we get everyone out we need to fight back, skilled as we might be it would probably be beneficial to have some forces on our side."

"Thanks to you kid we do… assuming Jimmy's tin toys count as forces…" Qrow pointed out from the side.

"The Atlesian knights-200 are more than capable of holding their own against foot soldiers." Ironwood snapped at Qrow, a scowl on his face as he looked at him. "Add that to my entire air force and the troops I brought with me and we should have enough people on our side to match them"

"Okay two questions: One aren't you having an ammo shortage? And Two: how am I responsible for the knights working?" Six asked in bewilderment.

"Well kid…" Roman began, his never absent smile grown to the largest it had ever been. "… You see I graciously solved the ammo problem while you were in a comma. As for the knights, well… you did stop her uploading the virus, how could you forget that kid? I know I'm not going to forget her reaction to being stopped by a teenager."

"A lot has happened since then." Six muttered. "So we have forces and we defiantly have the numbers to fight against them."

"Basically yes." Ozpin clarified.

"Well that's something. So what do you want us to do specifically? no way we're not getting involved with this." Emile said from the side.

"We want you to deal with the covenant, you easily have the most experience with them." General Ironwood clarified from the side.

"Okay, is that everything?" Carter asked, looking around.

"Stay safe and make sure your equipment is fully maintained." Ozpin said.

"We will." Six said as her group went to leave the office.

…

 **Authors notes: Sorry about how… well… nothing this chapter was. I felt like I needed it for the sake of everything being clear when we get to the festival, but I will admit it's not my best work.**

 **Anyway, actual chapter coming soon.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	84. Chapter 84

Chapter 84: Round one

Six was never a person to get stage fright, anything you wanted doing she could do it; no matter who was watching.

She knew that above her head would be thousands of spectators, happily anticipating the next match of the Vital Festival. But they were just going to watch the fight so no problem there.

So when her and the rest of the hastily established Team CESK were raised into the arena for their first match none of them were having any trouble dealing with said spectators.

The same could not be said for there opponents.

"Are these guys for real?" Emile muttered as he looked over at their opponents.

Six wasn't sure how to answer. On some level she got why the team standing opposite them would be freaked out by the crowd, but they were trying to become Huntresses (The team was an all girls set up) They shouldn't be looking around so nervously.

Six took a second to examine her opponents. All of them were first years. Their leader was tall with short brown hair, armed with a long sword upgraded with some kind of batteries built into the hilt.

Her second in command was a brawler, huge and armed with metallic knuckle dusters connected to some large bulky things on her forearms.

The third member seamed to have a large two-pronged gun slung over her shoulder and a huge pack strapped to her back.

The final member was easily the cutest (If Ilia wasn't cheering for her in the crowd {Literally, Coco had roped her into wearing a purple cheerleading outfit} Six wasn't sure she could have avoided staring at her) Said cutie was armed with a long spear attached to a piece of forearm armor with some kind of ribbon.

Feeling bad for them and the obvious stage fright they were suffering from Six called:

"Hey! We're the only guys you need to worry about!"

It wasn't much of a pep talk but it did get the four of them to at least look at them.

"Why'd you give away our advantage?" Emile asked. Six rolled her eyes and responded.

"What kind of fun would that be? anyway like you want an easy fight here."

Six couldn't see Emile's face behind his SPI armor's helmet, but she was sure he was grinning underneath it.

"Welcome to this round of the Vital festival, Featuring Team CESK of Beacon and Team LTRC of Haven!" Professor Port cried from the announcer's booth.

"Both these teams have been together for many years before their time at school, this match promises to be something special!" Doctor Oobleck added.

"The round will begin in just a few seconds!" Port said as the time began to count down.

It was amazing how long the three second count down felt to Six. She tensed up, getting ready to leap into the fight as she clutched Mjolnir tightly.

She took her time to look around, the arenas for the fight were randomly chosen, two biomes for the team set up. Six saw a mountain range and a fiery lava zone for the fight.

 _Because this looks right._

"Go!" The announcers yelled, and the fight began.

Six lead the charge, aiming Mjolnir's head at the ground and letting lose a blast from the top to send her flying.

LTRC jumped into action as she dived in. Their third member (Rouge) Took aim with her gun and fired a large blast of lightning at her.

Six's heart rate sped up as she saw the blast approaching her, her brain working a mile a minute as she activated Mjolnir's side vent to quickly change course in mid-air.

She only got a split second to look at the ground, she was going to land in between member two (Otherwise known as Tank for reasons she didn't feel like sharing) and member four (Carly)

Which did she want to go for first? The ranged spear weapon or the strong knuckle dusters?

Six decided to roll away, barley escaping Carly's spear as she stabbed it at her, aiming at the ground again with Mjolnir and blasting it off into the air.

As Gravity took a hold of Six again she got ready to attack. Discharging Mjolnir to spin in mid air and direct an attack towards the spear user.

Carly then made a mistake as she went to dodge, it did Six good that she was going to teach this girl this very important lesson in a non-lethal fight.

She thought she was safe as she was dodging, she wasn't anticipating an attack because she thought she'd avoided the danger.

She didn't realise Six was still perfectly capable of hurting her. Well she didn't until Six swung again and the shockwave hit Carly and sent her flying.

"Carly!" Tank cried as the girl was sent crashing off across the arena to the mountain sector, crashing to a halt as she hit a large bolder blocking the field. In a rage Tank turned to look at Six, who smiled. This fight was about to get good.

As Six fought Tank, Carter aim at Team LTRC first member (Lena) and sending a couple of quick burst's her way. She was able to dodge to the side as Rouge took aim with her lightning gun, only to be distracted as she narrowly avoided the Knife Emile had thrown at her.

"I see Miss Rouge has just learnt about Emile's knife collection!" Port called as the girl ran to a better spot to try and take aim again.

"Is he even aloud that many weapons?" Oobleck asked as he took note of the many knives Emile kept on his person.

"Nothing in the rules that says he can't." Port commented.

Kat took the lead on trying to take out Lena, sprinting up with her energy sword ignited as she swung the plasma blade, hoping to sever Lena's sword.

Sadly, that didn't end up happening. Lena's sword caught Kat's blade, electricity sparking off the metal sword as the blades clashed.

The two girls launched into a furious sword fight, the blades sparking all over the place as they fought, jumping, leaping and dodging anything that came their way.

"I think I've worked out this team's theme!" Six yelled angrily as Tank shot of another lethal looking punch that only just missed it's target and sent a bolt of lightning firing off out of the duster on said fist.

"Yeah so have I!" Emile yelled back as he jumped over the shot from Rouge's Lightning canon. "Fucking electricity!"

"Okay then! Let's show them what we can do!" Kat yelled, diving backwards and calling for her armor, grinning as the light built up around her she sprinted towards her opponent.

In shock Lena went to swing her sword… only to be blown backwards by the pulse of energy Kat released as her armor materialised around her.

"What the!" Lena cried as her opponent suddenly grew an extra foot and drove her first right into the girls shocked face.

"We're going all out then!" Emile cried, grinning like a mad man behind his visor as his grey suit sprang to life around him.

Unfortunately for… anyone who happened to be standing in the lava sector with Emile they then discovered something interesting about him when he summond his armor. Most notably that it was extremely hot and radiated a crap ton of heat. Enough to disturb the lava like ground around them enough that it triggered the area to go mental.

The ground exploded, the gas vents exploded out of the ground as the fires ignited. For Kat, Emile, Lena and Rouge the fight was over, Emile and Kat might have had better protection but that meant nothing when you got blown out of the ring.

Carter only just rolled out of the way as his armor finally emerged to protect him (a few seconds after his left leg got badly burnt as a result of the steam vent.)

"Dammit." He groaned as he looked around at the out of bounds Kat and Emile as the announcers yelled:

"And that's Half both teams taken out by the explosion!" Oobleck cried as Emile realised what was happening and swore loudly, tearing his helmet of and throwing it at the ground in annoyance.

"That looked painful, what happened to set the vents off?" Port asked, looking at the near totalled sector down below him.

"A sudden Surge of Heat from Emile broke the sensors and triggered them to go off." Oobleck explained, looking down at the scene bellow him. "It's a shame Too, Emile is usually a demon with that armor."

"Well now both teams are reduced to half their… What was that!" Port cried, looking in amazement as the mountain sector seemingly split in half with a huge spike of purple energy.

…

one minute ago

…

Six and Tank were fighting in the mountain sector, standing atop a peak both girls were going at each other as hard and as fast as they could. Out of the two of them Six held the advantage. Tank fought in a similar way to Yang, the only difference was that her punches had a longer blast range and a narrower shot. Meaning they were significantly easier to dodge.

Six got no small amount of satisfaction as she ducked and dodged every strike, smirking as Tank failed to hit her continually.

"Stay still!" She yelled in a rage, firing off a massive punch that was tragically easy to dodge.

"Nope!" Six said with an insane grin as she took advantage of the clumsy punch to swing Mjolnir properly and sending her flying into another peek of the mountain range.

Six's proud grin only got to last a few seconds before she suddenly had to deal with a sharp pain in her back.

Trying to turn around Six saw Carly's spear in her back. The amazingly cute girl grinned as flicked the switch. Suddenly the reason for the cable became clear, it was so she could throw it and electrify the tip.

Six yelled out as the energy surged through her, crying out she fell to the ground.

It was okay, she could fight this. This wasn't going to stop a Spartan, all she needed was her armor…

The revolution hit Six like a ton of bricks. How had she forgotten…

 _I don't have my armor anymore…_

Six felt like her stomach had been ripped out, she was in shock, she wasn't thinking… she was letting the power surge through her. She had to stop it… Somehow… What could she do… it was gone… she…

It was then that the Lava sector blew up, shocking Six and Carly so much that the power stopped surging through her. Only just able to scramble out Six looked across at the other side of the fight. She saw the Kat, Emile, Lena and Rouge get blown out of the ring.

 _What just happened…_

Six's thoughts were interrupted as Tank recovered and sent a fist smashing into the back of Six's head. Luckily being sent flying by Six had destroyed the cables keeping the dusters electrified so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

"Where's your armor!" She yelled as Six was sent to the ground, only just able to catch herself and roll back onto her feet…

To see Carly standing right there. Ducking and dodging as fast as she could Six could only just keep out of the two's reach.

Six knew what she had to do. She feared she's done it too many times this fight for it to work again but it was worth a shot.

The second she got the chance she unleashed Mjolnir's power and shot off into the air and, with no reason to hide it she decided to pull out one of her party tricks.

Shortly after this match Emile would say the design was exactly what he expected from a weapon forged on Remnant. Ruby would ask how she had thought of such an idea and if she would hep her fit something similar to Crescent Rose.

At that moment though, Six had no plan other than 'don't lose'

As she reached the peek of her arc she turned Mjolnir around in her hands, flicking the switch that would fully charge up the dust blade.

As she approached the ground her blade went from a foot long to over three, growing exponentially as she slashed it.

Six had known the Swing would be powerful. Mjolnir's Dust blade was designed to be the most destructive weapon she could think of. It was designed to send out so much energy when swung that an entire platoon could be blown back in one go.

What she hadn't expected was to split the mountain in half.

The blast was huge, sending a huge surge of energy blowing through everything as the fake mountain was shattered. Chunks of Debris were sent everywhere.

Other than the mountain Tank and Carly took the main blast of Six's attack. Both of them had been standing so close to each other that they had no way of escaping the huge blast.

Their Aura dropped into the eliminated margin as Six hit the ground.

Her last attack had proved a minor flaw in Six's design work. When Mjolnir went all out it forced a huge amount of energy out of the blade… and all the vents near it. causing her to get blasted by the energy and to hit the ground with a dull 'thud' Her legs buckling underneath her as she crumpled.

…

"Noble Six, please stop coming here." Locasta said in mock annoyance as she looked down at the girl.

"Sorry… What happened this time?" Six said with a week smile as she propped herself up.

"Your weapon revealed a design flaw or two." Locasta explained as she went to move on. "You've been out of it for about an hour. Now I better go check on your opponents."

"Kay…" Six muttered as the door closed behind the Nurse.

"Well that was brief." A voice from next to her said.

Jolting Six looked to see Tank lying in the bed next to her, most of her torso and right arm wrapped in bandages.

"What happened to you?" Six asked, although she was pretty certain what the answer was.

"You and your hamaxe happened." She explained, looking over at Six with a look of distain on her face. "You blew up half the effing mountain with it. Took a chunk of rock to the chest."

"Well we were in a match and I've never tested that move before." Six said, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly.

"That, I can believe." Tank said, grinning as she did. "Still though, was a pretty cool way to get taken out… although I hear the management is pissed at having two sectors totalled."

"If they didn't want them broken they shouldn't have made them so weak." Six retorted, smirk firmly back on her face. "Wonder where everyone else is…"

"No idea, in my team's case different beds." Tank explained. "You lot did a number on all of them."

"Oh, come on, that wasn't that big an explosion." Six said with a grin.

"Yes it was." Tank shot back darkly. "And unlike you lot my team didn't have power armor."

"In my defence… I didn't do it. I think…" Six muttered, realising she had no idea why the lava sector had blown up.

"You didn't, it was Mr Skull face… Emile I think?"

"Yeah that sounds about right." Six said, grinning. "Probably the side effect of his armor summoning."

"Yeah, got a question for you about that." Tank said, propping herself up on her elbows to look at the Six properly.

"What?" Six asked. Praying it wasn't going to be 'where did you get it' because that would lead to a lot of questions Six really didn't want to answer.

"Why didn't you do it?" Tank asked, looking intently at Six.

"What?" Six asked bemused as she looked at her.

"Why didn't you summon your set!" Tank yelled. "I know you can do it, Rouge hacked into the Beacon Systems to see what you could do…"

"Isn't that cheating?" Six butted in. Ignoring what Six had said Tank continued:

"…So why didn't you do anything! Was I not worthy of the super advanced power armor!" Tank yelled indignantly.

"It's not that…" Six said, her eyes dropping as she spoke.

"Then what is it! Please tell me! Why was I not blessed with…"

" **Because I can't do it anymore!"** Six yelled as tears began to flow from her extremely pissed off face. **"Because this shit happened!"** She cried, pointing to the scars on her face. **"And ever since then my Semblance is fucking gone! I can't summon the fucking armor!"**

"I'm sorry…" Tank muttered, looking at her with a look of shock on her face.

"It's fine." Six muttered, looking down at the bedding in front of her.

The tears were still flowing, she gripped the sheets as hard as she could as she said "I hate letting them down, I hate being so fucking week."

"But… you blew up the mountain…" Tank pointed out from the side.

"I know… but… if I'd had my armor I wouldn't have been knocked out, I could have made it to the ground… Urgh…" Six groaned, falling backwards onto her bed. "I should be able to do better."

"Well your best still did pretty good, your teams going forwards to the next round." Tank said as she looked at the wall. "So you did something right."

"Yeah…" Six muttered.

This wasn't good enough, she shouldn't be getting hurt like this, she should be able to use her weapon. She should be better than this!

 _I have to be, I can't fail like this when Salem's forces arrive… I wont._


	85. Chapter 85

Chapter 85: Preparation

Lying in bed was not fun, extremely not fun.

Six knew full well it wasn't the recovery process that was bugging her, ever since she came to Remnant she'd just had to accept the fact she was extremely squishy and broke easier than she used to.

Unfortunately, now Six was on a time limit she wanted to be out of bed as soon as possible. She knew she was hurt but she really didn't want to be here.

At the very least she had company. She was happy to have was Jorge, Emile, Kat and Carter around her bed. All of whom had shown up an hour after Six woke up.

"Six, how you feeling?" Jorge asked as Six shifted into a sitting position.

"Numb." Six explained. "I need some way to close the top vent when I try that move again."

"Yeah speaking of that." Emile butted in as he looked down at Six. "When were you planning on telling us you could do that!? I mean… you blew up a mountain!"

"Technically she blew up a construct in the shape of a mountain, not an actual mountain." Kat pointed out. "But yeah, how does that work!?"

Six suspected Kat was asking because the logistics were making her brain hurt so she explained as fast as she could.

"Mjolnir's blade can channel an insane amount of energy, That move puts all the currently loaded dust into one strike; because I'd been testing it recently all my rounds were all completely different, ergo when they went off together…"

"Extremely big boom." Carter finished, looking down at Six with a smile. "That should be useful in future fights… although the moderators have politely asked me to insist you don't use that attack again, they don't want to have to replace anymore of the Amity during the tournament."

"The what-aty?" Six asked in confusion.

"The Amity Colosseum." Tank said from her bed. "Are you just thick, or did your brain take more of a battering than I thought?"

Emile looked ready to murder the bed ridden girl over that.

"Want to say that again?" He asked as his fists tightened.

"Emile." Carter warned gravely.

Emile looked annoyed but his hand did relax out of its tight fist.

"To answer your question, ignorant." Six explained, looking over at the buff girl. "Didn't exactly grow up in the most civilised part of the world and missed a few things, all I needed top know was big floating stadium thing and that was it."

"I can by the whole rough area thing." A new voice said from the door. Lena, Rouge and Carly were just walking in to visit Tank. "Seriously was ritualistically applying a cheese grater to your face a thing where you're from or what?"

"Nope, I just have shit luck." Six said with a grin. "The face is relatively recent."

"Dear god… Anyway, congrats on the match, I can safely say elimination by massive explosion is a good way to get taken out." Lena said as she offered Carter a hand. "Your team fight well."

"Thank you, you put up a good fight." Carter responded as he took it and gave a firm shape. "Out of curiosity why the electric theme?"

"Ooh, ooh!" Carly cried, bouncing on her feet as she looked at Carter. "That was my idea! Back in Haven's gate when we were first put on a team I thought a theme would be cool!"

"Haven's gate?" Emile asked confusedly.

"It's Haven's Signal." Tank explained form her bed as her team went to greet her. "Unlike you lot we form teams much earlier, been working together since we were twelve."

"I've know Tank since I was four!" Carly added with a grin as she sat down on the girl's bed. "She's funny!"

"Anyway, you better win your next round." Tank added. "I refuse to lose to anyone except the best."

"We'll try." Carter said with a nod, before turning to the rest of his team. "Speaking of which, who's going to go through to the next round? We need to pick two of us to fight."

"Well I aint doing it." Six responded dully. "I need to fix Mjolnir so I can use my trump card without blasting my face off."

"Okay, my leg's also not great, it'll be fine by the match but I need to work on the armors delay, So Kat and Emile you're up." Carter said. "And Emile try not to blow the sector again, they won't pay for a replacement again."

"Got it." Emile said with a grin. "Shouldn't have to worry about the explosion thing again though, it was just bad luck of the heat generated when I summon the armor, in theory that shouldn't happen again."

"So we lost to a series of accidents, fucking perfect." Lena muttered rolling her eyes.

"Oh, come on, there's always next year!" Carly beamed as she looked around. "We can't be this unlucky twice."

"It would be pretty ridiculous for that to happen again…" Tank added with a grin.

"Oh, and we brought you something to keep you occupied!" Carly grinned, reaching into the bag she'd brought with her and extracting a black book. "I know this one's your favourite! It's the one where Hanzo and Aizawa get together in the bath house and…"

"Okay we don't need to hear this!" Six yelled, suddenly wishing she could get out of her bed and never stop running.

"Oh, come on, what girl doesn't like a little bit of Boy and Boy action?" Lena asked as she looked over at Six.

"The kind who has a girlfriend." Jorge explained.

"Oh so she'd be more interested in volume three then, there's this great bit when Nya and Ochako get locked in a prison cell and to pass the time they…"

"And I don't want to hear about this!" Lena declared, violently shaking her head. "Nope, nope, nope!"

"I have a suggestion." Rouge said, speaking for the first time since she walked in. "How about we don't discuss the smut book in public and save all of us considerable time and effort?"

Everyone silently agreed and soon the visit broke up, everyone else heading back to their dorms to prepare for the next few days. However just as she was about to leave Carly suddenly turned around to look at Six:

"Hey! Number girl! Someone wants to talk to you!" Carly beamed. "He asked if that was okay before we came in!"

"Erm… who wants to talk to me?" Six asked, wondering who it was, the only guys who sprang to mind as candidates had already left.

"No idea! Didn't even know what species he was, some big crystal lizard thing! He asked if he could talk to you!" Carly said, acting as if this was a perfectly normal thing to say.

"Fin?" Six asked, looking around. "Erm, sure; he can talk… amazed he didn't just butt in to be honest."

 _You did not like me doing that._

"I never said that." Six said, drawing an odd look from Tank who decided to burry her head in some yaoi smut to ignore the weirdness.

 _You thought it._

"I… Yeah I can see that. Anyway, what did you want to talk about?"

…

 _Salem's Castle_

…

"Faster." Garok scowled as Emerald sped up her slashing, moving faster than any human should have been able to, her new blades burning large gashes in the Prometheans as she moved through them.

"Arrrgghhh!" Emerald yelled, blood pumping through her veins as she moved faster. Everything hurt. She'd been drilling for hours and all her heart was pumping faster than it ever had before, even when she fought against the fall maiden.

The Elite had been working her to the bone every day since she was put under his tutelage. The man showed no mercy, he worked her harder and harder. She'd thrown up from exhaustion multiple times and she could tell another one was coming soon as she made the final slash through her last target.

Her breathing was rough and ragged as she struggled to get her breath back, wiping copious amounts of sweat off her face as she panted.

"Congratulation's human, you are officially slightly less abysmal than you were when we started." Garok snorted as he looked at her send him a two fingered salute.

"Fuck you." Emerald panted as she fixed her red eyes on him coldly.

"I am your teacher and you will respect me." He said, a distinct note of bitterness in his voice as he spoke.

"Why? You so desperate for some respect you're going to try and force it out of me!?" She shot back, grinning like a mad woman. Seeing the Elite take an angry step forward she knew she'd touched a nerve. "Yeah, I noticed, tell me why does an Elite get sent to train the fucking human none of you give a shit about? Better yet why do you eat with the fucking Grunts!? IE: the ones all of you hate?" She asked with a twisted grin.

"You dare!" He yelled angrily, orders be dammed, her ran forward and ignited his blades, this human would not insult him.

He drove the blades through her, only to see her vanish completely and have her call out. "Wow you are bad at this, missed me by at least fifty meters." She called from the other side of the room, grinning as he made another run at her.

"Stop." A voice called, recognising his Lady Garok skidded to a halt, looking up as she entered the room, flanked by two of her orbs.

"My lady, I…" He began before the tentacles of the first orb reached over and grabbed him, lifting him up into the air.

"Your orders were to train her, not kill her." Salem said coldly, looking at him with a look that could freeze magma.

"I…" Garok began before the air was choked out of him.

"This anger is why you bare the Arbiter Rank fool." Turak said, having been following his lady and entering behind her, standing to look at his disgraced comrade. "If you were a better strategist and thought things through more then maybe the Demons wouldn't have claimed the Holy site, maybe it wouldn't have been so badly damaged, maybe we could have stopped them from getting a maiden on their side. So many possibility's we could have had if you had any control!"

"Tur _AK!_ " Garok pleaded as the life was choked out of him.

"You will train the girl, we need her for the plan, continue to act as you are and I will have no mercy." Salem said as she looked up at Emerald (Who had moved to the ceiling before she started insulting the Elite.

"I, yes my lady, I… _Ack!"_

"Good." She said, smiling as she let the silver clad elite fall to the ground, who breathed heavily as he forced air back into his lungs. "Emerald come with me, I have something I want to talk about with you."


	86. Chapter 86

Chapter 86: Let's have a chat

 _When my kind arrive, they will slaughter everyone_

"Optimistic bugger, aren't you?" Six commented slyly as relaxed in bed, no need to bother looking good or presentable for someone who wasn't in the room.

 _It would be nice for you to show the effort anyway._

"Fin you can't see me, what difference does it make? Still you think the guys on the ground might need some help combating the surviving Hunters? Sorry about the… you know…" Six trailed off, kind of hard to explain in a good way that you'd murdered most of his species currently residing in his dimension.

 _It was inevitable. Anyway yes, the humans Ironwood has under his control will not survive an encounter._

"Okay, I take it you have a plan to deal with this problem then?" Six asked as she leant back as she shifted to a more comfortable position in the bed.

 _Obviously._

"Well spill it then." Six said with a grin as Tank looked up form her book (Apparently the one-sided conversation was stranger enough that two men shagging in the bath house couldn't keep her distracted)

 _I want to confront them myself._

"What the soldiers?" Six asked in mock confusion.

 _Obviously not, don't be an idiot. My fellow Hunters, I have to confront them myself._

"Fin you're tough but if seven hunters gang up on you you're completely boned." Six pointed out. "And I do like you alive."

 _I am aware of this detail. Besides you don't have to worry about that, I would have to be the most unlucky being in the universe to run into all of them at once._

"Why would that be? Also remember you're on a battle field, everything is going to go to shit and that includes your luck." Six pointed out as she reached a hand up and began to try and catch the ceiling light.

 _Yes, however it's the fact it's a battle field that makes me think I'll be okay. Turak is many things, Fierce, loyal, determined, a masterfull strategist…_

"Completely out of his fucking mind?" Six interjected.

 _Honourable, polite and most importantly, Not an idiot._

"I have evidence to the contrary." Six said with a grin as she remembered her 'one' on one duel with the Elite.

 _You fought with dirty cowardly tactics._

"And I've still got both my arms and don't have a monster replacement bolted in place." Six added. The silence from Fin really made Six know he couldn't find a strong retort to what she'd said.

 _That is not the point, the point is that they will not be placed in the same location, you don't gather every tank in one place, you spread them out…I want to fight them, I want to try and talk to them. I saw reason… maybe they can too…_

"You and Amber should start a club." Six muttered darkly. "The 'My logic wont win over my morals group' you could have T shirts and everything."

 _Six, you've put your morals over logic before._

"What? When?" Six asked in confusion (Tank was also confused but Six really didn't care enough to explain what was going on with her)

 _A certain Chameleon girl who you are currently going out with._

"Wait how does that fit into putting morals over logic?"

 _Seriously?_

"Yes seriously!" Six cried out in frustration, looking around angrily. "Please tell me what the fuck I did there!"

 _You walked into a room, saved someone from a terrorist who then explained she herself was one and you elected to ignore that detail because she was cute and needed a map. I'll repeat, you let a terrorist go and then saved her life because you thought she was cute._

"That's not the same!" Six gasped indignantly.

 _Yes, because with you it worked out. I haven't tried yet. I am not Amber; if I have too I will not hesitate to kill them. But I have to try, just like you did._

"I… Dammit stop being right about this!" Six gasped, grabbing her head in anger. "Why the fucking hell is everyone else smarter than me!"

"Because most people don't have conversations with no one?" Tank suggested from the side as she looked at Six in a way that implied she thought the girl was as crazy as her name.

"I'm not talking to myself." Six commented.

"Really? Then who are you talking to?" Tank asked. "Some kind of invisible ghost person?"

"No, I haven't met anyone who was a ghost or invisible… although given this is Remnant I'm sure they're out there." Six explained, grinning slightly as she thought about how she'd react to meeting these people. "No I'm talking to the Grimm/Dust/Alien hybrid that helped me save my friend's in the frozen wastes."

"Why did you say that like it was a normal thing to say?" Tank asked, a look of serious concern on her face as she looked at Six.

"Because in my life that is normal." Six said simply.

"Rriiiigght…" Tank muttered slowly, wondering how she could call the nurse to get help for Six…

 _You will do no such thing puny human!_

" _ARRGGH!"_ Tank cried, jolting out of bed and looking around like crazy, her eyes darting from place to place. Six meanwhile was slightly confused as she looked around, why was Fin…

 _I am Frak Ignus Norte, Mgalekgolo from planet Te! You are inferior in everyway to me! Bow before me human!_

Tank was still panicking and Six had worked out what he was doing. In response she started to giggle slightly.

"I, I, I…" Tank gasped, panicking and trying to scramble out of bed.

 _Do so and your life will be spared! Bow before me human!_

"I'm bowing! I'm bowing!" Tank cried, scrambling out of bed and bowing as best she could with half her torso bandaged up.

It was then that Six started to laugh loud enough that Tank noticed what she was doing.

"Six start bowing!" She cried desperately as Six's laughter only got louder.

"Fin! Ha, ha, ha! Fin stop dicking with her!" Six cried out, glad she was already lying down and not standing up because she would be on the floor again no doubt.

 _You dare tell me what to do puny human!_

"Yes, ha, ha, seriously stop it… Tank you can stop bowing now, seriously he won't do anything." Six said, looking over at the now very confused Huntress in training.

 _You are no fun._

"Oh shut the fuck up." Six muttered, rolling her eyes and smiling as she looked up at the ceiling.

…

"What did you want to talk about?" Emerald asked as she followed Salem down the dark hallways.

"In good time, come I have something I need to show you." Salem commented, placing her white hand on what seamed to be a very highly decorated section of wall. Which promptly glowed purple and melted away.

Behind the wall was a large open room. Unlike most of the castle (Which prioritised dark purple crystal's as a general visual theme) this room was smooth and angular, featuring various shades of grey with bright orange lights glowing from every inch of the room.

"Has this always been here?" Emerald asked as she looked around the room.

"Yes, although it was only once Turak arrived that I was able to get any use out of it." Salem explained as she put an arm behind Emerald, leading her deeper into the room towards a glowing orange circle in the centre of the room.

"What is this place?" Emerald muttered, looking around the room she'd never seen before.

"The control room." Salem explained as Emerald put both her feet down inside the circle.

"For what?" The red eyed girl asked as the circle's dull glow intensified immensely.

"The control room for the ship." Salem explained with a grin. "A helpful little guest was nice enough to tell me all about this, unfortunately I cannot control it… you however…"

The entire room brightened up, a series of control panels appearing in front of Emerald as the far wall began to split open, rock and debris falling off as the blasted hellscape beyond came into view, with screens and displays drawing themselves to life all around the room.

"…Have the touch." Salem said with a smile on her face.

"What is this…?" Emerald gasped as she looked around the room in amazement.

"My castle is not built on a mountain like I thought it was; Underneath our feet is a Forerunner star cruiser, it is far beyond anything humanity has built yet, funny as only a human can control it." Salem explained as she looked at the controls with a certain amount of distain on her face. "And as such I need your help to fly it into battle."

"You mean, we're going to use this… thing to help with our attack? I don't know what I'm doing here… is this wise?" Emerald asked in shock.

"My child you underestimate yourself." Salem said, reaching her arm out and putting it around the green haired girl. "Cinder would not have taken you in without skill, I know you can do this."

"But why… Why me?" Emerald asked in confusion. "I thought you were going to let me kill them… I have to…" She struggled out, her fist clenching tighter as she looked around.

"I am going to let you." Salem said with a smile. "When we bring this ship over and unleash it they will come to stop it, running right up here to you."

"Then I can do it." Emerald said, knowing full well she let to much hope into her voice. She cursed herself, she needed to stop acting like a dumb child!

"Off course." Salem said, gesturing for Emerald to step of the control panel. "Come here, sit." She said, pointing towards a protruding section of the wall that could act as a chair.

"Why… Why do this for me…" Emerald asked, trying to fight off the tears in her eyes as she sat down.

"Because loyalty is something rare to find in people" Salem explained simply. "Cinder was immensely loyal to me and she understood something important. If we let them stand united against us and we are divided, then we will lose. Cinder knew this and found followers of her own to support her and now she's gone… What else should I do? Should I abandon you? Leve you behind when you are fully willing and capable of helping? Ignore a bond that could prove helpful? No off course not, that would be foolish in the extreme."

Seeing Emerald still wasn't convinced Salem decided to tell her something else.

"Did you know she was shocked she found someone like you so quickly?" Salem asked, causing Emerald to start.

"Really?"

"Yes, less than a month of searching and she found someone perfect for her plans. Someone who would listen to her and was useful to her. She was ecstatic and her reports about you were always showed she was proud of you." Salem said slowly, careful with how she spoke, she really didn't want over do this. It probably helped that what she was saying was the truth; however, she was worried she may have messed this up when she saw the tears fall down Emeralds face.

"But she's gone now…" Emerald said, her voice so quite it was basically inaudible.

"Yes, but she was proud of you and you can make it right. Don't let them get away with what they did, take this ship, master it before we attack and bring them to their knees, make sure they suffer for what they did."

"I will." Emerald growled, her teeth gritted as she spoke. "Believe me I will."


	87. Chapter 87

Chapter 87: So are we keeping this a secret or not?

"So, hang on… Aliens are real?" Tank asked now Fin had finally stopped trying to play the role of a bad B movie alien invader.

 _Yes, quite real._

"I… Six why are you not more surprised than you are?" Tank muttered, looking over to Six who shrugged.

"Where I'm from its common knowledge."

 _Are you going to tell her everything?_

"The general basics yeah, might as well tell her. I mean the less friendly members of your kind are going to try and kill them at the end of the tournament…" Six began before she got interrupted:

"What!" Tank cried out in shock, crying out in horror as she looked at the purple haired girl.

"…So they might as well know what's coming." Six finished, looking over at Tank who seemed to be staring at the ceiling in shock. "You okay girl? You look a bit shocked."

"I am shocked! Alien invasion! That's seriously a thing that's going to happen!?" The poor girl cried, looking at Six in absolute horror.

"Erm… yeah." Six muttered, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. "Sorry we never said anything, but if they think we're prepared everything might go horribly wrong as they jump in before we're done… plus you know… fear, panic; none of that is a good thing when Grimm exist, so we're trying to keep it on the down low."

 _What Six is trying to say is that we couldn't cause a panic._

"I… I… Why are you telling me now? Is this a prank? Please let it be a prank!" Tank begged as she looked at Six.

"I'm sorry but it's not." A voice said from the door way. Looking over Six saw two people entering the room. One of them Six was happy to see and the other she was very happy to see.

"Ilia!" Six beamed, before looking at the speaker and hastily adding: "And you too General Ironwood."

"Good to see you to Six." The General commented, smiling as Ilia moved over to sit down next to her bed. "Do you have to spill every single secret you hear?"

"Well how could it hurt? Now she knows to keep her weapon on her and she can defend herself when they come. It's not difficult." Six explained.

"I… I know, just… do you have an off switch?" Ironwood asked as he sat down on the seat Ilia wasn't using.

"Erm… defiantly used to, hasn't been used recently." Six muttered awkwardly, before turning to Tank and introducing her guests: "Tank this is General Ironwood of the Atlesian military, and this cutie hear is Ilia."

"Hi." Ilia said with a week smile as she looked over at Tank.

"Hello… Six… I… Can I go? Please, this is all too much for me right now." Tank slowly muttered, trying to get out of bed until her ribs cried out in pain and she fell back.

"I would advise against that." Ironwood said, looking over at the girl with worry before turning back to Six. "Don't worry this shouldn't be any worse than anything you've already heard."

"What's going on this time?" Six asked, looking over as Ironwood opened his scroll and showed Six a picture.

"Your AI friend was nice enough to send us some probe images, if these are true then our situation might have gotten far worse." He explained as Six took in the image.

"Oh fuck!" Six swore as she saw what was on screen.

"Do I want to ask what's going on?" Tank asked, her tone toughly implying she really wasn't sure what was going on.

"Well, you know how I mentioned the whole… Alien invasion thing?" Six asked, looking over at her, trying to talk in the calmest voice she could muster.

"Yes, I can't get it out of my head currently." Tank responded, looking at her seriously.

"Well… They might have a mother ship now…" Six finished, watching as Tank fell over backwards and hit the bed with a loud:

 _Thunk_

"Well, she took that well." Six commented as she looked at the fainted girl, before turning to look at Ilia: "So how was the match to watch?"

"Pretty well, don't ask me how Coco talked me into wearing this…" Ilia commented, looking down at the cheerleader outfit she was currently wearing.

"I think it looks good on you." Six said with a grin as she took in Ilia's bare midriff.

"Glad you think so because I think Coco's trying to rope you into wearing one for the doubles round." Ilia said with a smile.

"Well I think you wear it better than I could but if she insists…" Six muttered, thinking at the very least she could prove to Coco that was a bad idea given her… Rough skin.

"Well I think she'll insist anyway. So anyway, what do you think you're going to do about this mothership thing?" Ilia asked as she looked at Six.

"Going to be honest I want to know this as well." Ironwood inquired, looking at Six.

"Well if it does arrive we can't let it stay in the air, but we also can't just crash it because chances are it's going to be floating above Vale and obviously we don't want to drop it there…" Six muttered.

"Yes, I feel the same way." Ironwood commented.

"Well in that case I think we've got two options (although you should probably ask Carter for more ideas, he's better at this than I am) One: We've got to take this ship out of the air before it reaches Vale, this would probably be for the best because it's probably how they're getting most of their forces over here (although they would be crazy to put every troop in one ship) so that would be good. Or in the less ideal option… we have to take the ship once it's here, Seven could probably take it over… Can you Seven?" Six asked, not at all surprised that the AI materialised in front of her bed.

"Probably?" The AI responded. "It's not my ship but in theory it should; be the same. Also, I will be flying the Remnants Pride into battle, given what were up against we need as much air support as we can get."

"I won't complain about the help, you better get used to coordinating with my men though otherwise something could go very wrong." Ironwood said, looking at Seven who nodded.

"Will do." Seven said. "Give me something to do over the next few days. Anyway Six, yes I could hack the ship if you could get me on board, Forerunner firewalls actually give me some trouble when it comes to breaking and entering if I'm doing it remotely."

"And if we plugged your AI chip into the main console?" Six asked, a grin breaking over her face as Seven responded:

"Oh, if that happens I can take the thing in a second."

…

 _Salem's Castle_

…

"This is wrong." Garok growled as he looked over at Emerald as she tried to get the ship off the ground.

"Quite." Turak scowled as he hit his Arbiter around the head with his Grimm arm. "It is our Lady's decision and we will not argue with it."

"But this pathetic excuse for a human! She's not worth of such power!" Garok spat, looking over at Emerald as she tried to stabilize the ship.

"It is not our decision to make Garok." Turak hissed as he debated slapping the idiot again.

 _Twak!_

Yup, that was the right decision.

"You should trust your commander more Garok." Salem said as she looked over at Emerald as she finally got the hang of the controls and stabilised the ship.

"Yes my Lady… but I…" Garok began before his head became the receiver of yet another injury.

"Stop, just stop." Turak muttered as he looked over at Emerald.

As much as he didn't want to he had to give the green haired girl some credit. Over the last few days he'd come to respect her a lot more than he wanted to. Her speech at him had rung true and she could sympathise with someone dedicating themselves to someone else completely. Granted she was a human but she in service of his Lady and she was proving more than capable.

Turak knew how big the ship was, he'd seen the schematics and they indicated the Forerunner cruiser was a very well defended colony ship, measuring over a kilometre in length with support for over five hundred crew mates and three thousand cryo pods. Not that that meant much when everyone in them was dead.

He would give the human girl credit, she was able to control this new technology with no difficulty now she had it down.

"Good work Emerald." Salem said, a legitimate smile on her face as she walked over to the dark-skinned girl. "It's good to see I was not wrong, get used to attacking with the cruiser over the next few days, we attack in a few days."

"Yes My lady." Emerald said as she looked at the white skinned woman, asking: "The ship wants a name… do you have one in mind?"

"Salem's Crusade." She responded simply. "Now I must go, Garok head to the training deck and get the rest of the troops ready."

"Yes Lady Salem." Garok said, bowing deeply before her before turning to leave the room.

"Turak, come with me, we must check on the horde." Salem said, turning to leave as Turak followed.

Emerald grinned as she was left alone in the room, she was going to get this thing moveing, she was going to attack and with this ship in her control she had little doubt in her head over who would win when it came around.

…

 **Authors notes: Sorry for the shorter chapter, this one really didn't need to be longer, so I didn't make it longer and waste your time.**


	88. Chapter 88

Chapter 88: Round 2

Ilia had been right, Coco had roped Six into donning a cheerleader outfit, complete with purple pompoms.

Six was currently interested in where exactly Coco had gotten these outfits from, Coco was more interested in knowing what Six had done when building Mjolnir that she could fit the hammer under her skirt in such a way it was completely invisible (Impressive given it was so short)

Currently Six and Coco were bickering over who's weapon was more implausible while Ilia was warming up. Carter couldn't help but notice just how surreal his life was at the moment, also a small part of him was wondering what Kat would look like in the outfit; but that didn't matter.

All of those watching grinned as the platform raised Emile and Kat into the arena, with their opponents getting ready on the other side.

"Whooo! Go Emile! Kick their ass!" Six yelled, jumping about as much as she could and waving the pom poms as much as she could. She knew she wasn't doing this properly, actual cheerleaders rehearsed and had some choreography planed out; all she was doing was jumping about and flailing her arms about randomly.

"Crush 'em Kat!" Ilia yelled, managing to pull of an infinitely better random jumping about move to Six. (Six would later go onto to say Ilia was more experienced, as opposed to her just being kinda shit at this)

The pair kept the cheering up throughout the match, during which Emile and Kat brutally crushed their opponents.

Six couldn't help but laugh, the third years the pair were up against probably figured they'd have the advantage over the first years who got taken out so quickly in their first match. The problem they soon encountered was not realising exactly who they were up against.

They may have thought they were more experienced, but they weren't. Training was helpful, extremely helpful, but there was no getting around the fact that experience in an actual battlefield trumped it easily.

Emile was honestly shocked over how these two fought. They were competent enough and demonstrating reasonable tactics… except their execution was lacking. They just weren't quite tight enough in how they did everything, making a few mistakes actual combat would beat out of them in half a second… Or potentially kill them over, but given Aura's existed…

Emile elected to be the one to teach them; he figured it was probably a kindness… admittedly an unusual type of kindness (Emile was fully aware that a blast from Tusky to the groin was not what most people would call nice) but he figured the heightened combat senses would help them in the long run.

Kat was also being kind in her own brutal way, most notable a metal arm hits a lot harder than a fleshy one, also that underestimating an opponent was a really stupid idea no matter how short they were and if they were missing a limb.

Also that if someone was reading a metallic first to hit you in the nuts you should be looking at the fist, not the girls huge breasts.

So yes, Noble Team made it through the first round.

And if the finals had ever gotten a chance to happen that might have meant something.

…

"Whhhoooooooo!" Six cried as loudly as she could as Kat ended the match (and possibly ending the guys chances of ever reproducing again)

"You guys are awesome!" Ilia yelled, punching the air with her pompom as she did so. Grinning massively as she watched Six make a complete ass of herself.

The adrenalin high of watching the fight was still running when something went off. Stopping her mad jumping Six reached down and retrieved her Scroll (Causing Coco to baulk as Six managed to pull another thing she'd hidden under her skirt)

"General Ironwood?" She muttered as she looked at the name, her finger hitting the answer button.

"Six, Six where are you?" He called, urgency radiating in his voice.

"I'm in the stadium, Emile and Kat's match just ended…" Six began before she got interrupted.

"Crap! Six you need to get everyone out of the stadium!" Ironwood said, it took Six's brain half a second to put the pieces together.

"But I thought they were coming at the end of the tournament!" Six cried as Ilia, Carter and Coco looked around in shock.

"Obviously they've sped the plan up, get to launch ramp Five A as fast as you can, bring everyone, we need to get you off before the panic starts, Winters waiting for you. We'll trigger the alarm once you're all on board, we don't have much time so get moving."

"On it." Six responded, slamming the off button and looking to everyone. "We need to move, Carter get to the waiting room and get both Emile and Kat, Coco get ready to jump ship…. Where's Velvet?" Six muttered, only just realising that Velvet wasn't with them in the crowd.

"She's back in our room, working on a project, she was going to watch the matches!" Coco cried, panic flooding her face as she looked around.

"Calm down, get to one of the evacuation points, you can get a ride to Beacon there, its one of the most fortified bits of the kingdoms so they should be taking you there." Six explained as she vaulted over her chair and ran towards the exit, the others following behind her.

"Got it!" Coco yelled back as she veered off to the left as they ran.

"Six is it true!" Emile called as him, Carter and Kat sprinted out of the changing rooms, their Spartan armor still materialised around them and weapons in hand.

"According to the General they've decided to speed things up!" Six yelled as they all charged towards ramp Five A. "Argh why was I so relaxed I should have seen this coming!"

"We can't worry about that now." Carter called, his voice calm as they ran along, made sense, the dude could remain calm seconds away from his death, obviously this wasn't going to affect him that badly. "We just have to do what we can."

"Hey Number girl!" A chipper voice from down the hallway called. Six spotted Carly walking towards them, a tray full of food staked precariously in her hands.

"Carly this really isn't the best time!" Six called before she got cut off by something.

Said something was an explosion that blasted through the wall of the hallway. A black sphere with an intricate orange glowing pattern decorating it's exterior. Which promptly started to melt away as it's contents broke free.

Specifically, Grimm, about five of them, all of them large and pissed off Beowolfs. Grimm are angry enough in normal circumstances, keep them cramped up in an enclosed environment and they're likely to tear each other apart if trapped to long.

It said something that Carly didn't even blink, she threw her tray to the side and pulled her spear out from… somewhere (She apparently kept it's deactivated from on her keyring… How she did this will forever be a mystery) And leapt at the nearest Beowolf, driving the spear through it.

Not wanting to waste anytime Noble Team jumped into action, pulling their weapons out and lunging into the fray.

Thankfully the Grimm were still wrestling themselves free from the pod so they were nowhere near close to the level of power they should have been, meaning in less than a minute the five beasts lay dead on the ground, dissolving into black shreds.

"Something big's going on isn't it Number?" Carly said, stepping over one of the bodys to look at Six. "This is what Tank was talking about isn't it?"

"Yeah, listen you need to get out of here, there are probably more coming and…"

As if on cue more explosions went off around the stadium and loud screams echoed down the halls.

"More panic! This is just what we need when dealing with Grimm! Okay, we need to move, Carly can you set the alarm off? We need everyone to move now!" Six yelled as Carly's head became a blur as she moved up and down.

"Leave it to me Number!" She cried, beaming despite the circumstances (Actually it was because of the circumstances, Grimm are not very good at tracking upbeat people) "I'll get the word out!"

Six nodded as they sprinted away as fast as possible, ramp Five A couldn't be that far away now; sadly, one more thing was determined to add itself to the 'Things that are trying to kill us' List that was growing at an exponential rate in the last five minutes.

It was another Grimm pod… except the Ursa that crawled out of this one looked a bit too familiar to Six as it hauled half a ton of glowing green dust that seamed fused to its back.

"What the fuck!" Six yelled as it hauled itself along the ground, the extra eyes that protruded out of its skull turned to focus on them. "What the hell is this bullshit!?"

"Erm…" Kat said, suddenly realising something. "We never bothered to disable Merlot's computer systems did we?"

"Oh for fucks sake!" Six yelled as mutated Grimm lunged at them.

"Fuck it we need to run!" Emile yelled. "We need to trust Carly to get the word out, come on!" He called as they sprinted around the beast in an effort to make it towards the ramp.

The Ursa did not appreciate this as it went to follow them. Its movements were slow and very sluggish but the damaged it did as it lunged around was more than enough. Seemingly throwing itself at everything as Its weight was smashing holes in everything it hit as it followed them.

In an effort to gain a lead on the creature the five of them elected to jump the railings rather than take the stairs down into the hall where Jorge, Winter and her airship were waiting.

"Come on pick up!" Jorge growled, looking down at his scroll in worry as the rest of Noble Team sprinted towards him.

"Jorge, we got hostiles!" Carter yelled as the Ursa took a titanic leap to smash it's way through the bollards and slam into the ground behind the group.

"What is that thing!" Winter cried as she drew her sword, looking to Noble team for answers.

"Mutated Grimm." Kat explained as she ignited her sword.

"Fusing Dust onto a living creature? Argh, we can't fire on it that type of dust is extremely volatile!" Winter cried as she studied the creature.

"It's following us… get in the ship!" Six yelled, frantically gesturing towards Winters airship.

They didn't hesitate for a second, Jorge and Carter took aim and sent off covering fire as the others sprinted back towards the ramp. The pair would soon follow them back onto the ramp as Six dived into the pilot's seat (Earning a look of anger from Winter as Six took off (as per usual Six was glad most airships shared similar control schemes, it wasn't like she needed to be precise with her plan)

Flipping the control switch for what she hoped was the guns (Six wasn't sure what else would need a safety switch on an airship) and turned the ship around. The Ursa looked pissed enough at them as it was, Six then proceeded to poke the hornet's nest by opening fire on it.

This drove the beast mad, charging and leaping into the air at them… Only to have Six fly the ship out of the way as the Ursa tumbled to the ground. Looking at the water behind them and knowing it went rock hard if you hit it fast enough Six suspected that beast wouldn't be giving her any more problems.

"Well that was a crazy plan." Winter commented, every pour of her body indicating Six should get out of her pilot seat.

Six moved away and towards the back of the ship as Winter flew them over to the Atlesian fleet.

"We need to get our ships coordinated so we can fight properly, hang on and…" Winter began before something went very wrong.

All she saw was an orange flash in the window and suddenly what she could see in the window suddenly shifted in rapid succession from sky to ground and back to sky again. The red warning light went off and everything ended with a loud crunching sound.


	89. Chapter 89

Chapter 89: This went downhill very quickly

Carly could never say she knew one hundred percent what was going on, ever. She also knew full well no one could say that they knew everything that was going on all the time. That would be insane. You couldn't be everywhere and you couldn't pay attention to every single person in the world all the time and this fact hadn't killed anyone yet.

That being said Carly wasn't ignorant to the fact she had a microscopic attention span most of the time. It wasn't her fault, her brain just didn't let her pay attention to anything for too long.

Despite this Carly wasn't surprised that her goal of getting to the alarm system did stick in her brain. She found panic and terror really helped her focus.

Which was good because she really needed her head on her shoulders right now, as opposed to the clouds. More Grimm pods kept blasting into the stadium and getting past all of them was proving to be an enormous pain in the ass. She had to jump and bounce off the walls, skid between the legs of giant monsters, vault over railings and take plenty of inventive short cuts (Or body slamming walls with enough brute force she broke through the walls {Carly was surprisingly tough, and tank had been giving her body slamming lessons})

Eventually she finally managed to get up to where she wanted to go. If it was a simple matter of pulling the fire alarm she would have done it. There was a problem that idea though: if she just pulled the alarm their was a very real chance people would run into the Grimm and panic.

That would obviously not be a good thing, right now they were safe because they were ignorant about the Grimm's presence (Mostly because they were unaware they were around) meaning they weren't panicking about them. This didn't make them invisible to Grimm but it defiantly made them harder to sense remotely.

Now telling the crowd that Grimm were attacking the stadium would cause them problems, They would defiantly panic when they heard about them; but being prepared for what was going on would be a distinct improvement.

So, how to get the word out? Simple, go to the announcer's booth and highjack the mic.

The problem with this plan was that it required her having a split second to think about what was going on and not running like crazy from a mutated Beowolf. Which was what she was currently doing.

So Carly's current plan consisted of using the Grimm as proof of her story when she kicked the door open. Assuming she made it that far.

In her quest to yell about the attacking monsters Carly's legs were a blur, pushing herself further and further as she ran, covering huge distances in a single step as she ran. Her legs were basically on fire as she legged it away from the monster.

It was when she hit the stair well leading up to the booth's that she got… creative. The stairs were arranged around four walls leading up to the next few floors. Instead of using the stairs she elected to jump up the banisters, grabbing them and pulling herself up to the next set of stairs, covering the distance far faster than the direct method would have (Also it trapped the Beowolf in the doorway)

With her proof unable to follow her she whipped out her scroll from the top of the stairs and snapped a few pictures quickly before running towards the booth.

Seeing the Door in front of her Carly lept up, grabbing one of the pipes on the ceiling swinging both her feet into the locked door of the booth with full force.

"What the!" Port cried, turning to look at the smashed door as Carly dived through the hole she'd made.

"Stop talking about whatever boring stuff you're talking about and look at this!" Carly declared, opening her scroll and showing the picture of the Grimm, which had helpfully helped her case by following her up the stairs and roaring at her at maximum volume.

"What! A Grimm! But how did it get into the stadium!?" Oobleck cried as he looked at the Beowolf which lunged towards Carly's hole in the door. Carly responded by stabbing the creature's head with her spear as it got stuck in the hole.

"Someone shot it at it." Carly explained. "They're all over the place and we should really try and get everyone out of here before…"

She was going to say, 'get worse' Unfortunately for her she didn't get to finish what she was saying because the situation chose that exact moment to get worse.

Specifically, another Grimm pod entered the stadium, from above. And it was massive, easily one hundred meters across.

Carly knew everything inside that pod would be extremely dangerous and as such she sprinted towards one of the microphones and said:

"Everyone you need to get out! That thing has got Grimm in it and they're running around the stadium, you all need to get out right now!"

Sadly, the crowed seamed transfixed by the giant sphere, so in a rage Carly bellowed:

"That wasn't a fucking suggestion you idiots! The Grimm will kill you! Get the hell out!"

That thankfully did the trick and the crowed started to funnel out.

"Everyone with a weapon protect those who don't have one!" Oobleck added, moving towards his mic so he could continue to issue instructions for the evacuation.

It was shortly after the crowd started to leave that the sphere in the centre of the stadium began to open and inside was…

Carly had seen Nevermore's before (they tended to live around Haven and stalk anyone dumb enough to go out into the deserts alone) but she had never seen one this big or scary before.

The thing was absolutely huge, it had been scrunched up inside it's pod and as it broke free it revealed it's wing span was easily big enough to fill the entire stadium. Like all older/big Grimm it's body was heavily covered in white bones and spikes. Although unlike every other Nevermore this one had black Gravity Dust crystals protruding out of it's entire body, a crest decorating it's head and razor sharp crystal feathers on every wing. It was big, loud and its screech was enough to send shivers down her spine.

So naturally her reaction to seeing it was to jump through the window (Aura makes this a not stupid thing to do) and throw herself at the thing.

Grinning she twisted around so she could throw her spear, which embedder it's self within some of the exposed wing that wasn't protected with white bone plates and using the extra long cable that powered the electric functions as a way of winging closer, flipping around it's wing and landing on the beasts back.

"Step one of plan awesome, done!" She declared, gripping one of the white spikes as she tried to think up a step two to plan awesome.

Before she could her scroll went off:

"Carly! Carly where are you!" Lena yelled, the background noise indicating she was in the crowd trying to get out of the stadium.

"On the Nevermore's back." Carly explained, smiling as she looked around; spotting the on/off switch for her spears electrifying function. "And I have a plan! Go plan awesome!"

She then flicked the switch as her grin spread across her face as the charge shot through the creature (She wasn't concerned about getting electrocuted, all of Team LTRC wore insulated boots and gloves as part of the group uniform)

What happened next would have confused Kat, mostly because it would have been the first time in many months that physics actually followed something approximating what she was used to.

Sadly, this was because her battery pack on her back did not prove enough to fully electrocute the three hundred meter wide Nevermore, the wing she was standing on writhed and flailed like crazy as the beasts nervous system got a severe shock, but Carly's plan of knocking the creature out in one go had proved unsuccessful.

"Plan awesome is not living up to its name." Carly muttered darkly as the bird turned around to look at the figure standing on its back that was responsible for the pain it was currently feeling.

…

 **Authors notes: Sorry for the short chapter today, I promise I would write a longer one if my sleep schedule recently hadn't been complete garbage (I only need sleep every other day right? That's how the human body works.)**


	90. Chapter 90

Chapter 90: We need to get back up there

Noble team and there companions thankfully survived Winters airship crash as it slammed down into the centre of Vale.

"Fuck!" Six swore as Winter's airship finally skidded to a halt on the ground. The fall had not been kind to the poor vehicle, one of its wings was torn clean off and the paint was a scratched mess, more importantly:

"This thing isn't flying anytime soon is it?" Ilia asked as the pulled herself upright. (One advantage of Aura was the worst any of them had gone through was being knocked over and slightly rattled.)

"No it's not." Winter groaned as she staggered out of the pilot's seat. "Dam this thing was a prototype…"

"We've got bigger problems right now." Carter said as he, Emile and Jorge kicked the landing strip down and stepped outside (Six assumed they'd tried the controls first but she could be wrong)

"You're right, we need to get back in contact with that Atlesian fleet." Winter said as she walked outside. "We still have orders to take out the approaching ship and we're not letting this minor hiccup stop us."

"Okay, how do we do that?" Six asked. "I mean I can't call the general right now." She explained, showing them her scrolls screen. "Does everyone else have something like this?"

"Yes." Winter scowled as everyone else tried their Scolls which failed to get any results because all of them had the same flaw.

They'd all opened their Scrolls only to have the screen display a red icon showing what was clearly an Elite's head stencilled in black.

"That's not good…" Six muttered. "Can you get it to do anything? Cause that's what's wrong with mine and I can't get it to work.""

"No, this must be some kind of virus… We do have an option." Winter said as she turned around on the spot looking for something.

"And that would be?" Kat asked as she looked at Winter twirl until she stopped, looking at something behind them and pointing triumphantly.

"We use that." She explained, pointing towards the CCT. "I can contact the fleet from there."

"Okay, everyone let's move; I want armor on everyone. If we're not safe in the sky, chances are we're not safe on the ground." Carter explained.

"Right." The rest of Noble team replied, pulling their armor on… despite Six.

"Dammit…" She muttered darkly as she looked down. A cheer leading outfit was not what she wanted to be wearing in a situation like thing.

"Come on let's move!" Winter called as they followed behind her towards the CCT.

…

It was while they were running that Six really wished they'd crashed at the top of the cliffs at Beacon, mostly because it meant they would be near the room filled with spare weaponry and ammo (Emile and Kat's ammo was running low because of their fight, Kat only had about half an hour of energy sword time left and Emile was running low on ammo for Tusky.) And because sitting in the vehicle bay was a mech suit with a jet pack and a Pelican, all of which would be more useful than their feet.

It was when they were halfway towards the CCT that the situation got infinitely worse, firstly because of the pods that started dropping.

Grimm in the streets was not a good thing, especially when most of the kingdoms Hunters where up in the stadium watching the matches, not down on the ground where they would be helpful.

"What do we do?" Ilia asked as they saw another pod crash into the ground nearby.

"We get the word out, something's blocking the Grimm alarms going off and our Scrolls from working." Winter explained as they ran. "Once the fleet knows what's going on they can deploy the Atlesian Knights, they can protect everyone."

"But how is this happening!? My Scroll worked fine a few minutes ago." Six yelled as they were forced to take a diversion because a Grimm pod had crashed in front of them and revealed a very large Death Stalker crawling out of it.

"Must have done something recently, maybe they're already at the CCT?" Kat suggested.

"The CCT only effects the signal for Scrolls." Winter explained, shaking her head at Kat as they moved back on the path they wanted to be on. "It must be something else effecting them."

"Well what…" Six began before she spotted a downed Grimm pod embedded in the bath, the thing had opened upside down, dropping the Grimm into the sewer beneath them.

"Six we need to move!" Carter called before noticing what she was doing, slipping the pod up and over to seeing what was inside once you removed the monsters.

Specifically, she was looking at a bit of crude looking machinery, it's smooth purple exterior and glowing green lights making it stand out drastically from the Forerunner spear.

"Hey Kat, does this look like a transmitter of some kind?" Six asked as she ripped the devise out to show it to her.

"Yeah, it does." Kat admitted as she walked towards it. "Looks like a small transmitter, they must be blocking our Scrolls, wouldn't say these things have got a huge range on them though, maybe five hundred meters in any direction?"

"With the amount of these things they're dropping I'd be surprised if we could get a signal within the city." Six muttered a she looked up at the sky and the storm of black pods falling from it.

"It doesn't matter." Winter cut in as she looked at the devise Six had ripped out. "We can worry about fixing this later, for now we need to get to the CCT, it'll be much harder to stop."

"Yeah, but if they thought to take out our Scrolls I'll bet they've done something to the CCT." Emile pointed out. "The Covenant is known for doing things like that."

"So I guess we're not just going to be able to waltz through the door?" Ilia asked with a very week smile as she spoke.

"Yup, like that's any different from normal." Six said with a smirk, before noticing something off with Jorge; He seemed to be looking down the street at something. "What is it?"

"Lucy, her house isn't that far away and she might not know about what's going on." He said slowly. "I couldn't contact her earlier."

"Go find her." Carter said, looking directly at him, he shook his head.

"She'd never forgive me if I left…"

"Go to her." Emile said, butting in to look him in the face. "She's got your dam kid in her, get to her; make sure she knows to get the hell out of here and then make sure she's safe."

"I'll let her know what's going on, but I don't think she's ever forgive me if I left you guys on your own." Jorge said, a grin on his face underneath his helmet. "I'll be back soon."

"Good, make sure you're quick." Carter said sternly.

"Yeah, you'll miss all the fun otherwise." Emile said with a grin as he turned to continue running towards the CCT.

Jorge didn't say another word before taking off.

…

"Okay, CCT should be right around this corner… FUCK!" Winter swore, grinding to a halt and quickly diving behind the building they were trying to around.

Noble Team and Ilia skidded to a halt, Slowly Carter stuck his head around the corner.

"Prometheans." Carter muttered darkly as he looked at the armored figures guarding the door.

"I'll bet you there are more inside." Six scowled as she ducked under Carter to look around the door. "Think they'll have anyone guarding the back?"

"Probably." Kat muttered as the two of them moved back into cover. "Might be less though… What are we going to do?"

"I've got an idea." Emile said as he cocked his shotgun.

"Emile just charging in isn't a good plan." Carter stated bluntly

"Yeah I'm with Carter…" Six muttered until she had an idea. "Actually no I'm not, I'm with Emile, you three should go running in." She explained, pointing towards Carter, Kat and Emile. "While us three go in to take out the device.

"So, we're the diversion?" Emile asked curiously.

"A diversion that gets to kick ass." Six explained.

"Well I'm game!" Emile declared.

…

It's a good thing he was because the plan was by no means easy or safe, the three on the diversion admittedly had no difficulty getting the guards attention (Throwing a spike grenade, yelling 'Hey Assholes!' at maximum volume proved very effective) but then the ones on infiltration had the hard part.

For one thing Kat was one hundred percent right when she said the back way would still have some guards. Mostly because there were. Not immediately (they were able to cross the lobby to the maintenance stairway unhindered {The Stairs were chosen because taking the elevator while under attack was always a bad idea}) but once they burst through the door at the top they saw all the guards.

Two brutes and a squad of Prometheans, they were not the problem, well to some extent they were but they could be dealt with. The two Elites standing at the control console for a new purple dome situated in the centre of the room however were a concern.

Six recognized Turak instantly, his Grimm armor tended to stand out along with his mangled arm (Not that Six had ever seen it before, but the descriptions she'd had made it fairly evident who it was) but the figure standing next to him was also worry some. Most notable with his elaborate sliver suit of armor which seemed to imply a very hard 'Don't mess with me vibe'

"What do we do?" Ilia hissed, apparently also knowing these two were dangerous.

"Elites tend to stay out of a fight until all there underlings are taken out; we might get away with fighting the others first…" Six muttered a she looked around.

"What do you mean might?" Winter hissed.

"The Elite with the Grimm arm does not like me" Six explained.

"He doesn't like me either." Ilia pointed out.

"Yeah but I have more experience fighting these things." Six muttered. "Look, I'll get his attention you two deal with the others."

"Six that's insane!" Ilia gasped.

"Probably." Six muttered before vaulting over the desk they were hiding behind yelling:

"Hey Turak!" She called, praying she'd remembered the stupid name right.

"You!" He yelled, looking at the purple haired girl as she walked out in front of him, recognizing the demons voice even if she didn't have her helmet.

"Yup, me." Six said with a grin, reading Mjolnir. "I know this is asking for a lot, but do you want to try and kill me? Like, just you?"

"After what you pulled the last time? Why would I ever agree with you?" Turak asked in disgust as he looked down at her.

"Well my backups going to be occupied with the rest of your guys so I'm not going to be able to call on them for help." She explained.

"A compelling argument." Turak muttered, rolling his eyes in annoyance. "I might, but ask me why you're not wearing your armor? Am I not worthy of it?"

"Er no…" Six admitted, wondering silently why no one in the room was going after her, especially the Brutes.

"Why not? Answer me or I'll let everyone open fire on you." Turak scowled.

"Oh well that explains that then." Six muttered.

"Ready!" Turak scowled, raising his fist into the air.

"I can't summon the stuff anymore!" Six blurted as fast as she could. "Cinder took the ability from me!"

"You lost to that pathetic waste?" Turak asked in shock as he looked at her. "You really have fallen low Demon. Very well, I will allow you're request of a one on one fight, if you're that weak I doubt you could beat me even with help, especially with My Ladies gifts."

Turak at that point pulled out his modified energy sword hilts and ignited them, the blade igniting a glowing orange and far longer than the standard sword blade.

"Come at me demon!" He yelled as he charged at Six, who was regretting her plan at this moment.

Then the situation got infinitely worse.

Salem's Crusade had pulled into the air space above Vale and it was gigantic. Easily bigger than the Seven's Remnants Pride. It was large enough that it seemed to be easily covering the entire city.

It looked like a giant black millipede in the sky, long with multiple sharp protrusions sticking off the side, and guns, lots and lots of guns sticking out of the side, all of them aimed straight at the fleet.

"No!" Winter cried, as it started to open fire on the Atlas fleet, and their primitive shields were nothing compared to Forerunner wrath. Those ships were not going to stay in the air very long if they couldn't stop it.


	91. Chapter 91

Chapter 91: You can't gamble forever

Everyone on the Atlasein carrier 'Eternal' had been worried when they where told about having Roman Torchwick and his mute… Companion? No one was really clear exactly what their relationship was, just that the two stuck together (Which Given Neo barley looked like an adult had some people very worried as reports of the two working together had been emerging for over five years now.) and that the pair were virtually inseparable.

And that being said they had a right to be scared of the pair. Roman was known fighting capability's during raids, having gone up against pro huntsmen and winning with seeming ease and as for Neo…

No one on board the ship had been given details on exactly what was going to happen during the festival but if it was big enough to give this girl a complete pardon provided she helped out…

So yes, everyone had been scared of having to keep an eye on the two of them (its worth pointing out that 'scared' and 'Unable to do it' are not the same thing, they were determined to keep the two under control) They had also been surprised that they really didn't have to do much to keep the pair under control.

The simple fact was the two had been doing what they were asked, staying where they were supposed to, attending the calls they were meant to (even if Neo wasn't very good in them due to the fact she seemed incapable of speaking) If anything their biggest problem was they seemingly had no respect for anyone onboard.

For example, currently the two 'contract advisors' (that was what they technically counted as at the moment) were busy playing cards with the off-duty troopers…. And they were winning and not exactly being subtle about that fact.

Neo had a perfect poker face, nothing moving and her not giving anything away no matter what she was looking at or what she had drawn (Her face was so un moving her face would be just as rigged for a royal flush or a completely awful hand) and her face was currently locked in permeant smug mode as her pile of Lien kept growing bigger and bigger.

Roman was also not helping matters, mostly that his strategy for avoiding giving anything away was to make terrible puns no matter what kind of hand he had. This didn't mean he was winning everything, in all honesty he was losing more than he won (but seeing as it was going to Neo it might as well be where it started as the two always shared the spoils of their near constant victory's) Now granted him near constantly losing wasn't a bad thing, but the number of bad puns he kept making were enough to drive most of the soldiers playing up the freaking wall.

Currently Private Pines was basically broke and, in an effort, to preserve his dignity had elected to go get everyone drinks over continuing to play cards.

In quite a reasonable fashion you couldn't get alcohol on an Atlas ship, no one wants to be drunk/hungover during an attack, but you could get basically anything else you wanted so pretty soon he was making his way back, eight mugs of coffee balanced on a tray.

He was going to give it to everyone, but he got distracted… mostly by a blast of orange energy blasting out of the sky and causing the Eternal to violently shake.

"What's going on!" Commander Hardwood yelled as he stood up from the table and looked around.

"I guess they chose to arrive early." Torchwick commented, standing up to look around. "Anyway Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure but me and Neo need to get to the escape pods. Need to help the fight on the ground you see."

"You're jumping ship!" Hardwood cried as he looked at the two.

"I prefer moving to an optimum location, we can't do much from up here and frankly I don't think you want us around during an attack, so if you would be nice enough to point us in the right direction we'll be going no…" Roman began before getting ready to move.

It was then that wall blew open and a metal sphere burst into the room, quickly breaking open and revealing a about three griffon Grimm.

"Well, this is awkward." Roman muttered darkly, grabbing his Cane and taking aim with it as Neo readied her umbrella, the Atlesian troops reaching for their guns.

…

Jorge was terrified, running faster and harder than ever before, even during Reach's fall he didn't feel like he'd ever moved so fast. Reach was his home, Noble Team and Lucy were family and he was determined to do what he had to for both of them.

It was at times like this he wished he was like that Sun Wukong boy he'd seen fight at the tournament, being able to create a clone of himself would have been perfect right now.

Still he couldn't stop when moving as fast as possible was his best option right now.

He bolted around the corner and charged down the street that Lucy's house was located in. Being a Spartan he was able to reach the end of the road in fifteen seconds and charged through the door (Making a note to fix it later presuming the house wasn't levelled.) and looking around.

"Get back you… Jorge!" A voice yelled, jumping down the stairs to look at him.

"Mr Polaire!" Jorge cried as he looked at the speaker who had clearly been aiming his crossbow down the stairs.

Well crossbow was a bit inaccurate, the weapon was actually an extremely high calibre rifle with a crossbow mechanism for trick shots fixed to the top, Jorge didn't know what all of them were, but he did know Gravity traps were a thing and he was interested in knowing the details.

"I told you to call me Daniel." The worried man said as he looked around, the grey in his hair somehow seeming even more dominating that it used to be. "I'm glad you're here, was just about to go fight my way to the hospital, help would be apricated."

"More than ready to provide it, I ain't leaving till I know my wife and kid are safe." Jorge said with a grim look on his face. "Once you're on your way to safety I gotta go, I can't Leave my Team behind…"

Then, looking at the look on Daniel's face Jorge added: "You know full well she'd never forgive me if I didn't." Which caused the older man to sigh.

"I know, my Daughters like that, well come on; the more time we waste dilly dalling…"

"Let's get moving, did she construct anything better for…" Jorge began to ask, looking around and praying his Wife would have some kind of weapon she could actually use with her child in her (Which the last time he'd seen her was actually starting to show up.)

"No, we had something, but we thought we had more time… I don't know…" Daniel muttered, looking around.

"And I've got all sorts of spare weaponry in storage at Beacon… Dammit, okay; bring her claws anyway, we'll have to think of something on the way." Jorge said, running towards were he knew the garage was. "You can drive right?" He asked, looking at Daniels noticing his limp acting up again (It was part of the story about the tusks on the wall, it was too long to remember every detail, but Jorge thought it had something to do with not quite being fast enough with the gravity trap)

"This?" He asked in mock shock as he looked down at his leg. "Tis nothing, barley more than a scratch, now come on." He said, taking the lead from Jorge and taking him to the slightly old fashioned beaten up pickup truck (seeing as the main car was gone it would have to do) that sat in their garage, then noticing Jorge was climbing into the back asking: "My boy you do remember how doors work?"

"I'm going to be a gunner." Jorge explained, holding up his mini gun. "You drive and I shoot at anything that moves."

"Good show, come now, lets go save our wives, some nice Father and Son in law bonding!" Daniel declared with a slightly mad grin as he climbed in and the old pick up shot off towards the hospital.

…

All things considered Carly really should have thought harder about the exact details for Plan Awesome. Mostly because she was sure if she had she wouldn't be dealing with a three-hundred-meter wide monster screaming at her.

"Eh heh, heh, heh… Don't suppose you'd let me go if I said I was sorry?" Carly asked hopefully as the beast looked at her before lashing out with the wing she was standing on, sending the turquoise haired girl flying off towards the stands and she was confident her Aura wouldn't be enough given how fast she was flying.

So, it came as a shock to he when someone leapt into the air and caught her. Looking around she saw a girl with orange hair and green eyes, apparently having launched herself into the air with the aid of her hammer.

The pair hit the ground with a considerably gentler thump than Carly was expecting, and she looked around. Only to have her view get suddenly blocked by a large girl wrapping her arms around her (and trapping her head somewhere around chest height)

"Carly!" Tank cried as she pulled her teammate into a tighter hug. "Are you okay!"

"Yup!" Carly declared as soon as Tank let go of her enough that she could talk. "Plan Awesome is still going well."

"At what point did your plan involve getting caught by a random student?" Rouge asked, her eyes shining out from behind her ninja mask (No one was entirely sure why Rouge went for a Ninja theme I her outfit given she used a large and extremely noisy lightning canon for her weapon)

"Right as Hammer girl caught me." Carly said happily before turning to look at her saviour. "Thanks for that by the way!"

"No problem, but we still gotta deal with that thing." Nora said as she looked up at the Giant Nevermore just as the rest of the two teams joined them.

"Do any of you have a plan on how to deal with that thing?" Lena asked as she looked up at the creature. "Or do we want to just try and run away?"

"There's an air fleet under attack out there." Jaune said, stepping forward and looking up at the creature (which was being slow to face them because it's bulk made turning around difficult) "We can't let anything else bother them."

"So, we're going to fight that thing then?" Carly asked brightly. "'Cause if that's true then I think we can rule out electrocution, I just tried it we don't have enough to take it out."

"Well that's just great! What are we going to do now!" Tank asked, only slightly surprised their team gimmick had chosen now to stop being effective.

"Wait, you guys all make electricity?" Nora asked, grinning as she looked at her team.

"Yeah, Team LTRC; Carly realised what that sounded like and we rolled with it, why are you asking?" Lena explained/asked as she turned to look at the ever-growing grin on Nora's face.

…

 **Authors Notes: Sorry about the wait, for the most part my Uni work hasn't affected my schedule but last Tuesday it did and well, here we are. I apologise for the wait, but school work does take priority, oh well I got two weeks for it so in theory provided I ration my time out smartly and don't try to one shot the entire Essay (not my smartest move if I'm honest) It should be fine, still if there's another longer than average (By my standards) break then I apologise but that's probably the reason why.**

 **Anyway, Chapter 91: otherwise known as I try to manage all the sub plots I've got going on at this point (Except one but I'll get to him) without grinding the main characters plot to a halt while also giving them the time needed so they don't end up feeling rushed.**

 **Hope it works for you and thanks for reading.**


	92. Chapter 92

Chapter 92: Screw Honour

Six didn't have time to worry about Salem's Crusade, she had to focus on the Elite running at her. Seeing as she wasn't one hundred percent sure Mjolnir would actually stop a regular energy sword (Let alone Turak's clearly enhanced blade) so she elected to take advantage of a Gravity Hammers main advantage. Specifically, you didn't need to be near your target to hit them with the gravity hammer blast.

Six was trying her hardest to hit Turak before he got into stabbing range; currently this was causing her trouble not because she couldn't do it, more because she knew full well she was on a limit. Mjolnir had a high Dust capacity but the power necessary to actually reach Turak was burning through Dust like wild fire. If she didn't end this soon she was going to lose her ability to defend herself and when that happened she might as well be made of paper when that sword came at her.

Turak was also not helping, slashing and stabbing with a speed Six had never seen before, dodging and ducking everything she tried to throw back at him. Turak was crushing her and she needed to end this fight soon.

Six ducked down and rolled under one of the CCT's desks and only just able to scramble to her feet again as Turak slashed the desk in half.

"Running demon!?" The mutated Grimm cried, his face twisted into something resembling the look a cat gives a mouse when it was toying with it.

"What do you think!?" Six cried as she threw herself over a different Desk and kicking the monitor towards Turak, who didn't even slash at it, he just raised his arm and smiled cruelly.

"You really have lost your bite Demon!" Turak smirked, enjoying himself as the dishonourable cur scrambled towards a wall, panicking when she ran out of places to go.

"So, I have to ask…" Turak continued as he slowly walked towards the Spartan, occasionally slashing at the desk with his sword. "…Are you worth anything in a fight without that armor of yours?"

Six snapped, she was about to leap at him, she didn't care if she had no plan, she was going to kill this prick.

"Six get down!" Winter cried as Six's saw something huge and glowing charging at her.

…

Ilia and Winter weren't having a good time either, granted they had things much easier than Six did, but only slightly.

The main problem they were having was being unable to select a specific target, the silver armoured Elite was ignoring them, apparently waiting until he had to before he joined in the fight. However, that wasn't much of a relief with the two Brutes trying to crush them and the Prometheans shooting at them.

This left a problem for the two of them, do you go for the immediate danger in the Brutes or take out their backup? One shot from a Promethean's rifle on an Auraless Huntress and you'd disintegrate like anyone else.

Ilia clearly knew her answer as she jumped over a charging Brute and lashed out at one of the Prometheans that had been taking aim at Winter, sending the full force of her electrified whip down the mechanical body. Seeing the Cyborg creature flailing Ilia yanked hard with her Whip, so hard in fact that the Promethean went flying and dropped its gun; Ilia jumping up and catching it, spinning around and sending a burst of fire towards some of the other Prometheans.

Winter meanwhile capitalised on the Prometheans being distracted she turned her full attention on the Brutes, pulling the trigger on her sword and ejecting the second sword hidden inside the first, catching it and lunging at the Brutes.

Winter at this point became glad she'd fought alongside Six before and knew exactly what a Gravity Hammer could do; this might give a small edge to most fighters, to Winter Schnee she might as well be a kid using cheat codes on a video game she had such an edge.

Winter Schnee hadn't gotten where she was by coincidence, Winter Schnee had earned the title of Atlesian Specialist because when she had to, she was one of the most ruthless strategists ever; able to formulate devastating plans against her opponents in seconds.

She'd seen how Six fought with a Gravity Hammer over a month ago, this was almost unfair on the Brutes.

Winter had studied what one of these weapons did, she knew the range of the shock wave and how powerful each one was. Knowing this she was able to stand in exactly the right spot's to not get hit by the shockwave and manoeuvre herself into the right position to stab at the Elites.

She was also able to use her tactical brain against the Brute's when she discovered some interesting details about them; specifically, because of how resilient their skin was.

Winter had designed her Sword's to cut through basically anything they came across, even infusing Dust into the blades to give them a power increase and drastically improving their cutting power.

The Brutes grey skin was stopping the blades, Winter looked up at the Brute as she failed to slash it across its exposed chest. The beast grinned at her and Winter was forced to dive backwards and out of the way to avoid another smash from the second Brutes Gravity Hammer.

 _Cutting won't work, I'll have to think up a different plan…_

 _Come on Ice queen that's easy._

 _You are not helping!_

 _I'm telling you, it's really not that hard if you think for a second._

 _Enlighten me._

 _Okay, swords do two things right, they slash and they stab._

 _I'm aware._

 _And which one haven't you tried yet?_

"Dammit!" Winter yelled in furry, enraged that he had thought of the obvious solution again she lunged forwards at the smaller of the two Elites and drove her sword into the creature's chest.

This time the blade stuck, burrowing into its guts the Brute staggered backwards and crashing against the wall.

Unfortunately, it wasn't dead yet and its friend was trying to avenge him, slamming its hammer into her. Her training aloud her to rotate in mid air and land on her feet at the cost of losing her sword (still stuck in the creature's guts) looking up and skidding to a halt she saw the two Brutes as they charged at her.

 _We need some help Ice Queen._

"ARGGHHH!" Winter cried, allowing her semblance to flow through her as a giant rune emerged behind her, a group of figures climbing out and leaping towards the charging brutes. Her summons didn't last long against the Brutes rage, but they didn't need too, all she needed was for them to last long enough for Winter to run in, jump up into the creature's stomach, grabbing the sword and pushing herself off the Brute and ripping the blade free.

The Brute desperately tried to stop the red blood from flowing freely as Winter summoned another one of her helpers, a new one she hadn't tried to pull out before, she hadn't slain this beast personally, but she'd put enough effort that she could pull something from the fight.

The second Brute had not reacted well when it got closer to her before a large bird like head burst free from her glyph and slammed down, stuffing the Brute down its throat and crushing it. Winter looked up at the Gryphon and it jumped out of the rune.

"Six get down!" Winter yelled as the Gryphon leaped at Six and Turak, smaller than its counterpart up in Atlas; far smaller. But it was no less vicious as it leapt at the pair.

Six managed to dive out of the way in time while Turak didn't, the Summon smashed into the Elite, and buried him into the wall, his sword being knocked out of his grasp as the creature buried it's armor plated skull into his chest.

Thinking fast Six dived to grab Turak's Sword, throwing the weapon to Ilia, who caught it and slashed the head off the last Promethean.

"Even now, you cheat demon?" Turak hissed, flicking his hand about as he tried to free himself from the wall.

"Hey, I didn't plan this one." Six smirked as she looked at Turak. "Not that I'm complaining, but out of interest Winter; how long have you been able to do that?"

"I'm a Schnee." Winter responded happily. "We can all do it."

"Nice." Six nodded, sending her a thumb's up as she began to power up Mjolnir's axe for, getting ready to end this Elite once and for all.

"Can't say I'm surprised." Turak hissed as she raised her hammer. "But now I think the act is over."

Within a second, he had freed himself from the wall, leaping free at such speed a storm of wind whipped up and knocked Six off her feet. The monstrous Elite skidded to a halt, skidding around and looking at the jammer, seeing it's lights pulsing slight he nodded.

"it's time to end this." He muttered, reaching onto his back and retrieving two more blade, igniting all of them and running at the three combatants. Like his previous blades these ones were a significant upgrade on the standard energy swords, glowing orange blades and far longer (although for these blades only one of the blades was longer than normal, leaving one longer and one shorter)

Now the room was empty (Something the three of them should have noticed) the three of them were able to fight Turak properly.

The problem was the three off them couldn't hurt Turak, none of them were capable of getting near enough to hurt him. Winters blades were much shorter than Turaks so they didn't reach far enough, Six couldn't get a good swing in because she never got a chance to stand still long enough to ready one and Ilia had a good chance, however…

The Chameleon girls whip wrapped around Turak's torso, before she could drag him off his feet his swords came up, cutting threw the metal that made up the weapon.

"Ilia get out of here!" Six cried as Turak looked at Ilia and charging at her.

Six saw the moment in slow motion, the enrage Elite looking at the red headed Chameleon girl, he body lit from the light bursting through the floor to ceiling window behind her.

At the very last moment Ilia dived out of the way, narrowly avoiding Turak's blade's as she stuck to wall next to the window. Unfortunately for the Elite himself he had built up far too much momentum and couldn't stop before he hit the window, smashing through it and falling to the ground below.

"Did that get him?" Ilia asked from her perch on the wall, peering out to look down at the Elite's crumpled form.

"Let's find out." Winter muttered, diving out of the same window and landing near the Elites unmoving body.

Ilia and Six then took a moment, looking at each other. Six grinned and took a step backwards allowing Ilia to dismount from her perch on the wall and leap out the shattered window, falling to the ground and rolling as soon as she hit it, standing up and looking around happily. Turak wasn't moving.

"Hey Six we…" Ilia began, before her heart stopped.

Turak wasn't dead, not even close; once again His Ladies shields protected him, and now he'd seen Garok outside of the building he knew what to do next.

Turak was not stupid, He knew the CCT was responsible for most of the city's communication and was helping coordinate the air fleet above them. Jamming it had been an obvious move, but his plan hadn't ended there.

He had long ago noted the problem with placing a jamming signal, most notably: You can turn a jammer off, you can get communication back someone would usually come to stop it, and to get heir with all the chaos going on they tended to be strong fighters. So, he had elected to modify the jammer they had placed in the CCT tower. And now he knew his last living man was out of the building he saw no reason not to activate it.

He pushed down on the detonator command hidden within his forearm armor, and the Vale CCT exploded.

Everyone within the city saw the tower explode, Turak was not messing around, if he detonated this thing he was going to make sure it wasn't just damaged, the damn thing would be levelled to the ground.

And for Ilia, there was only one thing she could look at; Six getting ready to jump inside the CCT. It had only been a few seconds since Ilia had hit the ground, she hadn't had time to jump herself. For a split second her Aura held up against the power of the explosive jammer, but only a second. As soon as it was over her body held together for less than a second before it was gone.

The smoke smothered everything for a few seconds before it finally lifted, revealing… Nothing. There was no evidence a Tower had even been built, let alone standing normally less than a second ago.

Then something flew out of the dust, Mjolnir flew through the air; being flung from what was Six's hands and smashing into the ground in front of the group.

Ilia froze, looking up at the spot in the sky where her girlfriend had been standing.

"Six…?" she asked slowly, her hand out stretched as she reached for something, someone who wasn't there…


	93. Chapter 93

Chapter 93: When the chips are down

Roman and Neo were beasts in a fight, the two didn't seem to communicate to know what the other wanted (It was very helpful given Neo never said anything)

No matter how crazy a move or insane a stunt the two of them pulled the other never got hurt, both of them able to dive out of the way of oncoming attacks and set up perfect team attacks.

If the Atlesian troops weren't too busy trying to kill the other incoming Grimm they might have been impressed with the two's performance.

"We need to get off this ship!" Roman called as he looked around, this place was being over ran, no way this ship was salvageable.

"We can't!" One of the Atlesian cried. "There blocking the path to the escape pods, we'd need to…"

What they needed to do was sadly cut of as a griffon reached in, grabbing him by the shoulder and tossing the poor man out the hole in the ship it had made.

"Dammit" The commander cried, turning his gun on the griffon and open firing towards the beast as it forced its large body into the room. This was not the creatures best move.

The thing was big and powerful, what this told Roman was that this beast had been around for a few years and had probably killed targets. He also suspected that this beast's success had been in open areas and not small confined spaces. Mostly because it was being so moronic it wasn't funny.

 _Then again, considering the people I'm surrounded by._

Roman rolled his eyes at the Atlesians, constantly hammering on the beast's thick skull plate with bullets that defiantly couldn't penetrate it.

 _If you want something doing…_

Roman sent a nod to Neo who saw it, smiled and reached into her trouser pockets and pulled out a Burn Dust crystal. (One she was defiantly meant to have and hadn't stolen earlier that night) and throwing it in front of the Grimm, which looked down at it in confusion before Roman took a pot shot at it with his cane.

The crystal exploded… as did the Griffons head. The body was pulled out of the airship by gravity as its body disintegrated in mid-air.

"Okay, as fun as this has been would someone be kind enough to point me and my associate towards the escape pods?" Roman asked, twirling his cane around as he looked towards the Atlesian troops.

"It should be through here…" One of the troops began, opening the door only to see why they couldn't get through. Most of the Corridor was gone, half of the wall ripped out, what was left included some very aggravated looking Creep Grimm.

Thinking fast the guard slammed the door shut before any of the Grimm could notice.

"Okay, I take it there's another way around?" Roman asked, when no one answered he added: "Come on boys, surely you know something!"

"You go up and over." The commander said. "But I warn you, the deck is probably crawling with Grimm and even then, you'd have to fight your way down through the rest of the ship to get there. The only reason it's the better option is because…" He was going to finish; however, he didn't need to, mostly because at that point the ship's corridor that was filled with creeps then failed and fell out of the air ship.

"I got it." Roman commented. "Well gentlemen, I wish you luck in your endeavours, but we really need to be going…"

"Good, because we need to as well." The Commander explained. "The guns aren't working, and we need to get them back online, help and I'll give you a good report when the General asks, duck out and…"

"You're blackmailing me?" Roman asked in mock shock. "Well I am shocked and appalled."

"Well half my men got eaten trying to fight those Grimm, and I need backup, so…" The Commander began.

"You misunderstand me, that was a complement, something I would have done." Roman explained. "Honestly I need to use that idea in the future."

"Then let's get moving." The Commander muttered, wondering exactly how he should feel about Romans comments.

…

The trip up to the deck was surprisingly quick, the four of them sprinting up the stairs and forcing the hatch open, seeing the reason it was stuck came from the dead trooper jammed on top of it.

"Ouch, tell me how many letters do you recon you're going to need to write, just a suggestion but I find my method is a lot easier." Roman explained as he looked at the multiple corpses of Atlesian troops who had had the bad luck to be on deck when the Grimm started their attack.

"What method would that be?" The one remaining Atlesian foot solider asked. While his face couldn't be seen because of his helmet Roman was sure the man was scowling underneath it.

"I do nothing unless it incriminates me." Roman explained. "Nature gets rid of the body eventually."

"That's disgusting." The Solider muttered darkly.

"And so, are the people I work with, what's your point?" Roman commented. "Seriously the woman who was going to head this attack wanted to murder some of the students as part of her plan."

"You're sick." The Solider growled.

"And she was planning on putting a bullet through my head, not exactly a hard decision to make is it?" Roman responded. "I'm a gambler, you don't make dumb decisions if there's an easy out."

"Urgh." The Solider muttered, giving up on trying to reason with Roman. His heart then skipped sevral beats as another Griffon slammed down in front of him.

 _Bang!_

"Be glad the odds are on your side right now." Roman commented as the dead Grimm rolled off the edge of the ship.

…

Jorge was not sure who taught Daniel to drive but he knew one thing: They should be a race car driver. Daniel seamed to have a perfect read of the road, moving faster than someone who didn't know the terrain ever could have, flowing smoothly over the roads and around corners.

The terrain was scattered with debris as various Grimm destroyed the buildings, trying to get into them to attack the cowering civilians.

Any Grimm on the ground met the surprisingly resilient front of the truck. Any in the air took a series of shots from Jorge's chain gun and quickly stopped being in the air.

"Good shot!" Daniel commented as Jorge managed to burst the eye of one of the orbiting Grimm, sending the beast crashing to the ground. "Haven't seen a shot like that in years!"

"Good to know, how far off the hospital are we?" Jorge asked as he looked around, not recognising the area of the city they had just entered.

"Not far now, I'm going to take a short cut; we'll be there within five minutes!" Daniel responded as he sent the truck down a side ally that was only just big enough for the truck to fit (Provided you didn't think wingmirrors were important for a car) and shot out the other side into a street littered with Grimm… before they mowed them down.

"Clearly not the best they had to offer…" Jorge muttered as he looked at the dissolving body's.

"They're probably saving the toughest Grimm for the air fleet, its mostly civilians down here and if they can't fight…" Daniel explained, trailing off towards the end.

"Aren't there shelters around?" Jorge asked as the truck was flung around the corner and finally Jorge could see the building they were looking for.

"Yes, but with so many scared people inside they atract Grimm like crazy and eventually a big enough Grimm will arrive and…"

"Fish in a barrel." Jorge muttered. "So we better end this attack fast."

"We need the hospital back without any shadow of a doubt." Daniel explained. "We can lose people after the battle if we can't treat them."

"Yeah, come on, lets get inside!" Jorge yelled as Daniel slammed on the breaks and as the Spartan jumped over the body of the car and hit the ground. Aiming his gun around and looking for any nearby Grimm.

"Can't forget these!" Daniel said as he pulled his daughters claws out, tossing it to Jorge who caught it and stored them under one arm before the pair darted into the hospital.

…

"This plan is insane!" Tank hissed as she peeked over the stadiums seats to look at the huge Nevermore.

"Hey our parts over." Lena pointed out next to her. "Now we just have to let that Nora girl do her thing."

"Once Rouge and that Ren guy get it into place." Carly added, grinning madly as she made herself more comfortable next to Tank. "Hey, do you think those two are cute together?"

"What quite and quitter? How would that even work?" Lena asked, looking over the seats towards the area Ren and Rouge were standing in, getting the Nevermore's attention in a subtle way… Most notable shooting it with Ren's twin machine pistols and Tank's high-power lightening gun.

You win no prizes for guessing which proved more effective at getting the Nevermore's attention.

The two on distraction duty grinned, darting forward and ducking between the creature's massive legs as it tried to crush them with its razor sharp beak… Which got stuck in the stadium ground.

"Nora!" Ren called. His ginger friend nodded and crouched down to get ready.

Except Nora wasn't ginger currently, Team LTRC's weapon were mostly dead; there batteries almost drained of all power. And it had all been channelled straight into Nora.

Normally her semblance would give her a strength boost, but it was mostly dependent on luck and getting any electricity sent into her. Having four huntress's worth of power sent directly into her had had some… interesting side effects:

Most notably her entire body was glowing blue, her skeleton clearly visible. She crouched down, lightning surging and sparking from her lets as she built up power in them. Looking ahead Nora saw Jaune and Pyrrha getting ready, crouching down with their shields.

"You ready!?" Nora yelled, a mad grin on her face as she looked at her two teammates, both of whom nodded.

That was all Nora needed.

Her legs exploded with energy, flying forwards at insane speeds and flipping around in mid air so she could put each of her feet on one of her teammates shields. The power surged and sparked around her as her teammates gave her a push, shoving their shields forwards as Nora exploded to life; a torrent of wind following her as she moved forwards.

She was at the Nevermore's head within seconds, not even thinking she swung her hammer and sent the Nevermore's head flying, scattering its body in the wind storm that followed her.

"Whoa…" Tank gasped as she looked at what Nora had done in one hit.

"Yeah…" Lena muttered, suddenly wondering if it was possible that something incredibly badass could trigger a Bi curious phase; because currently she was leaning towards yes.

"Hope Rouge doesn't go after Ren now." Carly commented. "I don't think she'd survive it."

"That I agree with." Tank muttered as she looked down as the rest of Nora's team sprinted towards her.

"Well come on, lets get of this stadium before anything else…" Lena began saying until she felt a sudden lurch in the stadium.

"What's going on!" Tank cried, panic in her voice as she looked around.

"Erm… we did have an incredibly powerful creature slam into the floor… what happens if that Grimm had enough power to damage, say… the gravity crystal at the bottom of the stadium…" Lena muttered, praying she was wrong, because if she was then they had to get off the stadium quick or it was going to hit the ground hard.


	94. Chapter 94

Chapter 94: Out of Luck

Fin hadn't found any of his brothers yet, from what he could tell none of them were actually on the ground fighting; He couldn't be sure, but he suspected they where in the sky onboard the ship.

 _Then what do I do?_

He hadn't thought about what he would do if his brothers weren't around, he'd never really thought ahead...

"ARGGHHHHH!"

Fin jolted around, that sound had been extremely loud on the outside but it had been even worse inside his head. Fear was never pleasant to Hunters, mostly because the worse you felt about killing prey/targets the harder it was. He was used to the cry's, but he never could do anything about it before, he had his orders and he had to follow them…

 _I don't have any now…_

His mind was made up in a second, faster than many would have thought possible the Hunter took off. Charging his plasma cannon and reading his shield as he ran.

Soon he saw where the scream had come from, a café with it's glass windows blown out. He could see the person who'd screamed, a small child who was shaking the body of an older woman. Standing over them was an Ursa with its claw ready to strike.

It then was not ready to strike as it found itself buried in a wall from a sudden impact in it's side, then it felt its head blow up as a blast of plasma incinerated it.

Fin turned his head to the child, who had stopped shaking his mother to look up at the Hunter, its mouth agape.

 _She's okay._

The child was shocked, the creature that had saved him hadn't said anything, but he heard it and was it right? Eventually he was able to get a response out:

"What?" He asked, looking up at the Hunter as he bent down and picked up the frail body of the boy's mother.

 _She's still alive, come on; we need to get you two somewhere safe, do you know of anywhere nearby?_

The boy nodded shakily.

"Yeah, the shelters by my school… we've been having drills since the last attack… Will she be okay?"

 _She is simply knocked out, her Aura appears to have taken most of the hit, now come on, the sooner your safe the sooner I can help more people._

So the two walked forwards, neither of them saying much to the other as they walked down the street, occasionally Fin would blast an approaching Grimm with his plasma cannon but other than that the walk was silent until they reached the shelter entrance.

 _You two!_

Two men near the entrance started as they looked at the towering dust infused Hunter.

 _Get this child and mother into the shelter, I need to go out and find more people._

He then gave them the knocked-out mother and turned to leave when:

"Thank you!" The boy cried as he was hurried down the stairs deeper into the shelter.

Fin stood still for a few seconds before responding:

 _You're welcome._

Then without another thought he took off again, charging down the street as fast as he could, looking around to see if anyone else needed help or…

That was when the CCT exploded, snapping the Hunter out of his thoughts and causing him to look around in shock.

The tower was bad enough, but then he felt something worse, a practical storm of negative emotions raged inside his head. A part of him wanted to fall to his knees and scream. Something was wrong, something was very wrong

…

Emile, Kat and Carter had had a surprisingly easy time playing distraction. They were very good at fighting enemy's, it was basically the main thing Spartans were trained for and the Prometheans (plus a few Grimm that were around them) were quickly dealt with (once they had run the near mile they needed too to find a good spot to actually have the fight)

Carter had used precision, sending two short bursts of fire through the skull of the few chasing him. Kat had elected to destroy the guns with one quick slice and then stab them through the head. It was quick, and it meant there were less dangerous weapons littering the ground for people to find later.

Emile however had decided not to use precision, instead he was using a full on shot gun blast to the face for each of the ones he was fighting. Tusky was proving a very effective tool. Granted he was out of ammo now but that's what he had twenty one knives for.

"Okay, lets get back." Carter called, the rest of the group joining him as they ran back towards the CCT.

"You think they're doing okay?" Kat asked as they ran along the wrecked street towards the CCT.

"Off course they are, they've got Six with 'em." Emile responded simply. "Girls tough and Ilia's with her, no way she's letting her get hurt."

"And what if she got hurt?" Kat called back.

"Please, she's a Spartan! What's the worst…?" Emile began as their destination finally came into view… and promptly exploded.

"Shit!" Carter cried as a chunk of shrapnel flew through the air, one shard flying forward and embedding its self into his visor.

Emile and Kat manged to get of unscathed (Scratches just added charm) but they all froze for a second.

"Carter!" Kat cried, moving towards him and inspecting the helmet. "Is your face okay?" She asked as she gripped the sides of his helmet off.

"Yeah, I don't think it went beyond the visor." Carter explained as Kat pulled the visor off. "Crap going to have to fix this…" He muttered as he looked at the damage done to his visor, while most of the helmet was fine the visor was heavily cracked from the point where the four cm long shard of metal stuck out of the face plate.

"Get Six to do it, she's good with armor repairs." Emile yelled back. The main reason he yelled was because he hadn't stopped moving, Carter and Kat would be fine, and he needed to congratulate Six's team on the explosion.

However, the second he got there he immediately realised something as wrong. Four figures were clustered around the wreck of the building and two of them were Covenant troops.

This wasn't right, if Six had been there they would be dead. Emile sprinted towards the group and his eyes went wide.

Ilia was frozen, staring at where the CCT used to stand while the Silver armoured Elite stood behind her, raising his sword to strike.

…

Ilia couldn't move, she couldn't look away. It wasn't possible, it hadn't just happened; it couldn't have.

In a second Six was going to show up from somewhere, a dumb grin on her face as she pushed her purple hair out of her eyes and said something silly. It was going to happen, Six would be fine, everything was going to be fine.

But she was taking her time, the rubble of the CCT was still there, but no Six. Come on girl you needed to get your hammer back.

Everything was fine, everything was fine, everything…

 _Ilia move!_

The voice cut deep into her mind, somehow reaching her and giving he enough time to dive forwards as the Familiar burnt armor and glowing Dust Crystals of Fin came into view and sent the silver armored Elite flying.

"What's…?" Ilia asked in a daze as she looked around. Fin had just come barrelling in out of nowhere to attack the Elite who had been readying a strike on her.

Wait, where was the other one, where had he gone…? Why wasn't he here?

 _Ilia get out of here!_

Snapped back to the situation again Ilia gasped and scrambled away from the two huge figures as the crashed towards her. Each step they took shattering the ground around them as they went at each other.

Fin appeared to be aiming to crush the Elite with his shield while the Elite was trying to stab at him with his twin energy knives, it was only due to Fin's reach that he hadn't succeeded.

"Over here!" Emile called, holding a hand out to the Chameleon girl who took it as he pulled her to a safe distance, so she could look at what was happening behind them.

"What happened here!" Carter called as he ran towards them. "All we saw was the CCT going up and…"

"Turak…" Ilia choked out, looking at the dusty remains of the tower. "…His jammer… it went… I… I was out… but…"

"Ilia calm down it's okay, come on, what happened?" Carter asked as Kat caught up with him.

"Six… Six was… Six…" Ilia began, but she couldn't speak, the words just weren't coming out; dammit why tears now? This wasn't helping!

"Noble Six was still inside the tower." Winter said as she walked towards the group. "She… She didn't make it out."

The Spartans froze as they looked at Winter, then to Ilia who finally stopped trying to hide the tears and let them cascade down her face.

"Six…" Carter muttered, his face speaking more than his words as he looked around, as if expecting her to show up from around the corner or something.

Kat simply clenched her mechanical fist tight as she looked around.

Emile… Emile reached for his Knife, the original one from Reach that Six had returned to him. He closed his eyes underneath his helmet as he looked around.

"Come on." He forced out, looking around at the group. "We've got to move."

"Emile!" Winter hissed as she looked at Ilia.

"No, he's right." Carter said, sighing as he moved forward. "It hurts, but we've got to move on."

"We can't. not so soon…" Winter began as she looked down at Ilia.

"We don't have time, I'm sorry." Kat said, walking over and gripping Ilia under the armpit. "Come on, get up."

To Winters surprise Ilia was able to stagger to her feet, looking around in a daze.

"What do we do…?" She asked, wiping her eyes and looking at the Spartans.

"We go up there and we make the bastards pay." Emile said, pointing towards Salem's Crusade hanging in the sky.

"But how? Without the CCT we can't call for a ship to get us up there." Winter pointed out as she looked at the group.

"There might be a way." Kat said, looking to Ilia. "I need your scroll."

Nodding Ilia pulled the devise out of her pocket and handed it to the blue Spartan who immediately prized the back off the unit.

"What are you doing, this is no time to be moding a devise that doesn't work anymore!" Winter yelled as Kat pulled a component out of the back.

"I might be able to figure something out, now come on we…"

Ilia missed the rest of Kat's explanation as she just looked off into the distance, well until Emile put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey." He said, looking at the girl who blinked.

"Emile… Hey, I…" She began with no idea what she was going to say.

"I know it hurts." Emile said, looking at her seriously. "Believe me I do."

"You've had something like this happen?" Ilia asked. Stupid in retrospect but she wasn't in the best headspace at the time.

"Yeah, Only Six fought longer than me back on Reach." Emile explained as he sat down on a dust covered bench, patting the spot next to him. Ilia took it, it suddenly hitting her that she'd never really heard the others talk about their time on Reach.

"I… what was it like… seeing them…?" Ilia began.

"Felt like my dick got ran over every single time." Emile explained with a rather forced laugh. "I guess you could say I believed the hype, I didn't think we could die… I thought Spartans were invincible… Then Jorge sacrificed himself… I was… urgh, it hurt but he chose to do it, he chose to try and save everyone in exchange for himself. Same thing was Carter… But what's happening now… this is Kat all over again…"

"How did…?" Ilia asked nervously, it seeming insensitive to ask how a friend died.

"Six never told you?" Emile asked in surprised, causing Ilia to shake her head slightly.

"She just said you died… she never explained the details…" She explained weakly.

"Can't imagine it was pleasant for her. Kat… Kat was unlucky, simple as. She got sniped by a Covenant fuck a few feet from safety." Emile explained.

"That's awful…" Ilia said slowly.

"It's what happens in a war, you can't control what happens and sometimes it just shits on you and you gotta deal with it." Emile explained. "It sucks but that's all you can do."

"But… how do you deal… my heart, I…" Ilia stammered, trying to think of the right words to say.

"You deal by taking advantage of the one thing in a war you can control, and that's yourself." Emile said simply. "And here's what you do, you do what they would have wanted you to do, you fight harder and harder to kill as many of them as you can, you make them pay for hurting you."

"So… Revenge?" Ilia asked with a week smile.

"You do what you feel you need to. I'm going to take as many of them with me as I can because I know that's what Six would have wanted me to do, what do you think she would have wanted?"

Ilia thought about it for a few seconds.

"She'd want me to be okay, she'd want me to make it through… however, she wouldn't want anyone else to get hurt, she wanted to be a Huntress and we fight and stop the monsters." Ilia said firmly as she looked up at the Skull faces Spartan as he nodded in response.

"Good, now let's go do that." He said, standing and offering Ilia a hand to take. Gripping it Ilia stood up as Kat cried out with joy.

"Yes! Got a signal, come on pick up." She hissed as she held her helmet radio.

"What did she do?" Ilia asked as she approached the group.

"Patched a Scroll transmitter and data base to her helmet radio." Carter explained. "She's using her helmet instead of the CCT, no idea who she's calling."

"If she ever picks up I'll tell you." Kat muttered darkly before suddenly perking up.

"Coco is that you? Yes! Okay, look we're at the CCT, we need a lift to Beacon; you think you can get someone down here or are we gonna have to climb the cliff? Okay, good."

"What's happening now?" Winter asked as she looked at Kat.

"One of the rescue ships is going to come down here and get us, then once we're at Beacon we can grab the Pelican and fly to that Forerunner ship." Kat explained happily. "All we've got to do is make sure the LZ's clear and we're good."

"Why do we need a bird for, and we need to alert the fleet!" Winter cried looking at the group.

"We've got out own airship back at Beacon." Kat explained, looking around simply. "That's the Pelican, we'll drop you off once we fly it there; we can't take the rescue ship, never flown it before and it's just begging for something to go wrong, so we grab out own ship, drop you off and we kick ass on that Forerunner ship."

"Very well then, might I recommend we help Fin out then?" Winter asked, pointing over her shoulder towards the fight still raging between the mutated Hunter and the Elite.

Emile grinned and pulled two of his knives free.

"More than happy to." He said simply as he got ready to join the fight.

…

Turak was confident that Garok could deal with the rest of them. The man was an idiot, but he could fight and had killed the Demons in the past, so he wasn't worried about that.

He had taken a pod back to his Ladies ship, he had another part of the plan to do. Stepping out onto the top of Salem's Crusade (Which more closely resembled a mountain range over a space ship because all the debris were left on it from when it had left the ground) and walking to the very edge, looking up at the mountain located in Vale.

To the residents it was a significant national landmark, to his Lady it was the prison for a very faithful servant. Now was time to free it.

Turak had been granted many gifts by his lady and this was his biggest, her hordes were his to control, now it was time to free him.

He fell down onto all fours, leaning back and letting out a scream that would have frozen anyone who heard it with fear, assuming they lived at all.

However, the scream had a meaning, a very simple message:

 _We need you, be free._

The mountain began to crack and shatter as the long buried prisoner fought free, smashing and snarling as it burst out of it's prison.

"The city and school are yours." Turak said simply as the beast flew forward and landed on the Crusades deck. "Destroy them all."

The Grimm Dragon let out an insane roar before taking off, determined to level everything in sight.


	95. Chapter 95

Chapter 95: Whenever you gamble…

Roman was not in the least bit surprised that fighting there way to the gun controls was not in the least bit pleasant, Grimm were everywhere on this ship, the pods kept landing and breaking out; sending out swarms of the creatures to scatter across the ship.

"Is this ship particularly important?" Roman asked towards the Atlas Soldier as he blasted a Creep's head off. "Or is it just bad luck that every single Grimm pod lands here?"

"Bad luck." The General said simply. "Were positioned in the path of the main command ship. I suspect these pod things can't change direction very easily, so they keep hitting us before they get there."

"So, we're an unwilling decoy… Well that's just… NEO!" Roman cried suddenly, sprinting towards an Ursa that had just sent his companion flying into a wall. His body moved at insane speeds, jumping into the air and aiming a shot with his cane the entered the beasts skull; traveling through the Grimm's body and exiting out of the creature's groin.

Liquefying someone's brain and most of their important organs worked just as well on Grimm as it did on people (Roman had experience in these matters) and the beast was already disintegrating before it hit the ground.

"You okay?" He asked as he approached Neo, who nodded and took his outstretched hand.

"Hey Sir…" The Soldier said, turning to his Commander and asking: "…What are these two to each other?"

"Private Andersmith… No one knows." His Commander said simply. "The two just started working together some years ago and they've been a titanic pain in our rear ever since."

"Glad to know we keep you on your toes." Roman said cheerfully, having walked up to them and grinning as he spoke.

"But you don't." The Commander shot back. "You keep me behind a desk filling in forms and damage reports, So thanks for that asshole."

"You ever considered becoming a criminal?" Roman asked as they continued on their path to the command centre. "You should try it, there's no paper work and you set your own hours."

"What about when we're chasing you and you have to hide out in a public toilet for five hours?" The Commander shot back.

"Technically I was never in there, you lot just thought I was and I didn't bother to correct you as I ran to vacuo." Roman responded. "Actually, I'm glad you did, wouldn't have met Neo here without that run."

"What do you mean?" Andersmith asked, looking at the bowler hat wearing criminal in interest.

"Well you see… wait Neo you okay with me telling these fine gentlemen?" Roman asked, turning to the small woman who seemed to be thinking about something. Somehow knowing she wasn't sure about her answer Roman elected to sweeten the deal: "I'll buy you a gun, a really big one."

To the Alas soldiers it was a shock to see that that was what got her to nod enthusiastically, to which Roman laughed and turned to them: "Girl can't help it, she loves the things." He explained with a grin.

"If you don't mind me asking, how old is Neo?" Andersmith asked, offering presents seemed like something you did with really young kids...

"I don't know." Roman responded simply. "She's never told me, and I've never asked."

"Wait seriously?" Andersmith asked in shock.

"Well off course, don't know if you've ever noticed this, but Neo isn't exactly the most talkative girl." Roman said with a smirk as he ducked under a low door frame as they began to move through the crew quarters.

"We thought she'd have talked to you." The Commander responded simply. "Never realised she never talked period."

"Well she doesn't, matter of fact she can't" Roman said simply. "She's been to the doctors, something's just not right with her vocal cords."

"Isn't that a problem if you're a criminal?" Andersmith asked with some curiosity.

"In some ways, in other ways she's never going to spill a secret so that's helpful." Roman said dully. "Plus, it's always good to have backup on your side, saved my neck a fair few times."

"So, you two are close?" The Commander asked curiously.

"No, we just spend most of our time together for no reason." Roman muttered, rolling his eyes as he spoke; spinning his cane around and taking a pot shot at a Beowolf that attempted to leap at the group. "Yes, obviously we're close."

"That's not what I meant." The Comander muttered simply. "I meant, well… are you two like…" He struggled to think of a way of explaining what he wanted to say without being so blunt about it. Thankfully (If somewhat mortifying) Andermith helpfully made the fingers on his right hand into a circle and then proceeded to slide his index finger in and out of said hole.

"You filthy…" Roman cried in legitimate shock (The first time he'd ever actually expressed that emotion to these two) "…No we are not like that! She was about fourteen when I found her!"

"I thought you said you didn't know how old she was." The Commander said, wanting to smack Andersmith up the head for his visual aid.

"I don't know exactly." Roman elaborated. "I just know she's developed a lot since then and if she hadn't been young when I found her then I don't want to know what was going on with her genetics."

"Yeah I can see that…" Andersmith muttered darkly.

"Okay!" The Commander called as they reached a door. "We're nearly at the gun controls, we make it across the main deck and we can get them back online."

"How do we do that?" Roman asked curiously.

"We get in and reboot the system, I've heard you've dug around in our systems before so you should know how to do it."

Neo nodded happily as she looked out at the mostly empty deck, gesturing towards it and getting ready to move out.

The group wanted to move quickly, none of them wanted to hang around any longer then they had to so they moved fast and they had very nearly cleared the fourhundred meter run to the control room when 'The Pod' crashed into the Eternal's main deck.

'The Pod' was huge, a sphere with a one hundred meter diameter it was huge and clearly intended as the final blow to the command ship of the Atlesian fleet… It was a shame none of them could fly straight and it had instead cracked open on the Eternal.

It wasn't that the pod stopped, it kept going; but the bottom half did crack and a large number of Grimm spilt out onto the deck. No one had time to count the exact number of Grimm but it was easily a hundred that broke free and managed to hit the deck (Quite a few of them missed the ship and hit towards the ground) and the four humans were suddenly feeling less safe, that many Grimm would easily break into the command room.

"We need to move now…" The Commander yelled before an Ursa grabbed him and threw him over the edge of the ship. Andersmith wasn't sure on the Commander's Aura, but he was a high-ranking person, he might survive the fall…

Or at least that's what he told himself to keep himself thinking straight in the moment.

Roman and Neo were already attacking when Andersmith called (while blasting Grimm with his gun even if he wasn't looking too hard) "One of you get to the control room and get those guns online!" He yelled as he shot at the Grimm.

"Neo go!" Roman yelled, knowing full well the small girl was far more competent at computers than he was. "We'll keep them off your back!"

Neo nodded and sprinted up the stairs towards the door as Andersmith turned to Roman, panic in his voice and yelled:

"How are we meant to take on all these Grimm!?"

"Smithy my boy… I don't know, I suggest we just keep on shooting." Roman answered as he reloaded his cane and took aim at the creatures.

…

"Damage report!" General Ironwood yelled to his support staff as the struggled to look at what had just hit them and deal with the fire that used to be a valuable computer system.

"Another pod sir!" Lieutenant Blaze called, her fiery red hair a mess as she dived into the fire to rip the hardrives out before they were destroyed (Her semblance meant nothing short of lava could so much as burn her) "And a big one, approximately one hundred meters in diameter!"

"Dammit!" Ironwood yelled, slamming his fist down on the console as he looked out. This battle was going horribly, perhaps if he had any exact idea what was going on he might have been able to form some kind of a plan, but he couldn't communicate with any of his ships and he had no idea what was going on. Maybe he was too used to having every single detail of a battle at his finger tips but now he was really missing it.

He had no idea what was going on and could barley keep his own ship in the air let alone defend the rest or the rescue ships, he was sure a few of them had been shot down by now.

 _Focus man! I didn't train a maggot like this!_

 _Come on Jimmy, aren't you supposed to be better than this?_

Ironwood wasn't sure why his head was populated with one of his old drill instructors and Qrow, but he knew they were right, he couldn't panic.

"All forces get to the main deck!" He yelled into the intercom (Thankful it was still working given what was going on) Force the Grim back and over the edge, don't let them get any ground on the ship!" He yelled as a Squad sprinted onto the desk and began to fire on the Grimm.

Then his eyes widened in horror as he looked at what was going on, his men were disintegrating, tracking the glowing orange shot that triggered the disintegration and yelled: "All Squads, The robots take top priority, they are ranged fighters, incredibly dangerous; they must be taken out first!"

The General hated not being able to hear an answer back from his men but he had to trust them, they were the best, he would settle for no one less on his Flag ship.

It was then that he saw someone else enter the battle eon the main deck. A man in a black and red suit, his hand on a sword hilt as he surveyed the battle raging on the deck.

Adam was joining the fight.

…

Neo darted up the stairs, kicked the door open and suddenly wondered why none of them had realised that the staff on deck would have turned the guns back on and that something must have happened to them.

The something was a squad of dark metal robots with various orange glowey bits covering them.

Neo didn't hesitate to fight back, leaping into action she stabbed one of the machines in the head with her umbrella before spinning around and making another stab at more of the robots, ripping the guns free and turning them on there users.

Neo could only conclude as she walked towards the control panel that these things had gotten the jump on the crew because they didn't seem competent enough to have taken them out.

Soon she was at the console and looked at it. More evidence for the 'These Robots are dumb' theory was that they apparently hadn't taken out the main console and she was able to boot the systems up.

 _Time to get these guns back online._

…

Roman was running out of ammo, energy and Aura. Or to put it simply… he was screwed. It amazed him how much he wasn't bothered by this. He'd been screwed the second he decided to align himself with these Atlesian guys.

Andersmith was not doing too well, a Beowolf Alpha had managed to sink its teeth into his shoulders before Roman had been able to kill it and he was suffering, only able to use his side arm with one of his arms mangled and Roman didn't give him long.

He was still alive, but with as many Grimm as there were… He wasn't getting out of this. He was surrounded on all sides by these monsters and he wasn't getting out.

He turned to look at command booth, he could just about see Neo doing her thing inside the booth and was somewhat happy to see the guns turn around. At least the Grimm attacking him probably wouldn't live as the sentry guns went online.

Then he gasped in horror. Neo had left the room and was going to try and save him. That would just get them both killed.

It was funny, Roman had always said that Heroes' would just die. No good ever came of it to the person, you sacrificed everything, and you paid dealing in the end so everyone else was happy. With that in mind he had decided that at least as a criminal you did it for yourself and you benefited. Granted you would still come to a bad end, but that didn't matter until it happened.

He had always said he'd survive… Well… he wasn't going to. With one shot left he moved his cane and fired, not at a Grimm, but at Neo.

Her Aura was full, so she could take the hit, but she was knocked off the ship, with her umbrella in hand she could reach the ground safely (It wouldn't be the first time) but now she was gone, not exactly safe but she would have a chance now… him.

Well he was sure that Giant Ursa was going to kill him as the Massive Jaws crunched down around him, he was gone, but hey; someone lived.

 _Crack!_


	96. Chapter 96

Chapter 96: Well… Someone's gotta kill that thing haven't they.

The wait for Coco to arrive and get the group was not fun, mostly because of the person who wasn't there and the inevitability of explaining that to said girl and because of the two giants fighting each other where the CCT used to stand.

In all honesty none of the group wanted to talk about that particular subject. Noble team knew what it was like to have this kind of experience, many of them had suffered the same fate and had to do it for at least one member of the group before and after Six arrived. Simply put it was not a happy feeling.

They knew what they had to do, Emile wasn't lying, the only thing they could do was keep moving and make sure they paid for killing Six, but it wasn't an easy thing to do.

But thankfully (In a very twisted way) they didn't need to worry about that right now, currently they needed to Kill Garok so the ship Coco was on could land safely.

The problem was the elite just didn't seam to die, able to tank almost ever hit they threw at him. Carters rifle failed to find a mark on the Elite's exposed flesh, he was just moving too fast for any of his bullets to find their mark.

Emile was having a similar problem, with Tusky out of ammo he was relying on his throwing knives and he only had so many of them; and any that failed to hit their marks were promptly trodden on bey either of the several ton combatants were promptly crushed into mangled pulps as there full weight came down on them. With his umbers down to fourteen he wasn't going to waste anymore.

Ilia might have been able to do something with her whip, but she had no real plan of what to do and even if she had been able to trip one of the combatants there was no guarantee something bad might have happened to the other one.

Kat and Winter were in the same boat, for there swords to work they'd need to get in closer and try to stab the Elite, this was a problem though because neither Fin nor Garok wanted to stay still and let them get in to a safe point were they even could attack properly.

That was not to say Winter didn't have a plan though.

"Get back and give me some room." She said to those around her, pulling her sword out as the ground around her began to glow with a soft white light.

…

Fin could see why this Elite had been granted the rank of arbiter, partially because being physic gave him a literal insight into his opponent's thoughts but mostly because of how he fought.

The Elite lived up to the title, his skill with his energy knives was a credit to his race. While most of them preferred the much longer blades of the energy sword, this one was content with the smaller and more powerful blades. Keeping low and going for long jabs to try and get the Hunter in a vulnerable area.

Said Hunter responded with his shield, a mass of metal the Garok certainly managed to strike, but none of which penetrated far to hurt the Hunter.

That being said you shouldn't win a fight by just defending, you had to go on the offensive at some point otherwise you'd just tire, and your opponent would kill you. So, Fin knew he needed to do something soon, but there was a problem.

Anything he did would leave him open to an attack Garok would take in a millisecond. The Elite was just too fast for the Hunter. It wasn't that Fin was slow, but all of Garok's movements seamed to blur into each other as he moved around.

Fin then had an idea, it was a strange idea, not one he had even even contemplated before; hell he'd scolded the girl for doing something like it.

He shouldn't, he knew he shouldn't do it, shouldn't even consider it… But then a memory came to the surface of a girl in power armor pointing out the undeniable truth to him:

" _Well it worked didn't it?"_

He would apologise to his Brother when her saw him again, but for now he had to win and stop the Covenant and Salem.

 _For such a skilled fighter you sure failed, didn't you?_

Garok gasped, hissing at him responding: "What do you mean you traitorous sack of…"

 _For someone as skilled as you to be an Arbiter, care to explain how that happened? Because it seems to me that you must have made rather a hash of something to end up as you are._

"Shut up!" He hissed.

 _Was it your attitude? Because I can see it being that, but no, it's not that is it? Tell me, how does it feel to know you're responsible for all that irreplaceable information and_ _artifacts_ _being destroyed?_

Goading was not an honourable attic, in fact it was a great insult to who he was fighting (Because it implied he wasn't giving the duel his full attention if you were busy thinking up insults to throw at his opponent) but he couldn't deny it worked.

"ARGH!" Garok cried, exploding forwards and going for a reckless slash. A jumping slash that started a good few feet away and tried to stab. What this meant was Fin has enough time to ready a large swing with his shield that collided satisfyingly with the Elite and sent him flying and hitting the ground with a horrifying crunch.

"Fin, would you mind if I finished this fight?" Winter called from where she'd been watching the fight.

Fin looked around, seeing who was standing next to Winter he nodded, sure that if he could smile he would be right now.

…

 _I'm going to kill them, I'm going to kill all of them! They are all dead! I won't let it stand! I won't let this stand!_

Garok forced himself to his feet, looking around and clutching his stomach which had taken most of the impact from Fin's shield.

As he looked around he noticed something, he had help, two Brutes were walking towards him. Perhaps if he hadn't hit his head on the ground (Helmets stopped strikes but if you put enough blunt force on them it was still going to hurt the skull underneath) he would have noticed something was wrong with them.

Specifically, they were glowing white and they had been slain about five minutes ago.

He did notice something wrong when he reach his hand out so they could help him up… and one of them raised his hammer above his head.

"Wh, what are you doing!?" He cried as the Brute slammed the hammer down as his companion raised his hammer.

To the group watching away from the rest of the fight they couldn't help but feel somewhat bad for poor Elite. Nearly all of them had been on the receiving end of Six's gravity hammer before, getting beaten to death by two of them couldn't have been pleasant.

Shortly after Winters summons had done there job and vanished Coco and Velvet arrived in there airship.

"What happened to that guy?" Coco asked from the door of the bullhead, grining as she looked at the splatter that used to be an Elite.

"Trust me he got of easy." Ilia muttered as she jumped up into the ship.

"What do you mean…" Velvet asked a she counted everyone getting on board the ship (Even Fin, Bullheads had a surprisingly high carrying capacity and could easily fit the Hunter) and suddnely noticing something.

"I, wait where's…" Velvet began before Ilia but in.

"Dead." She responded bluntly, sitting down against the back wall of the air ship and began to fiddle with her whip.

"I, what do you mean…" Coco began, her eyes wide with shock as she looked at the Chameleon girl, also noticing the lack of Six.

"She mean's Six was still in the CCT when it went up." Emile responded gravely. "So can we please get back to Beacon so we can get in the fucking Pelican and stab the bastard who did it to death."

"I, what…" Coco muttered, her eyes seaming to not focus on anything as she looked around confusedly.

"Come on, we need to get moving…" Carter began, walking towards the pilot's room before something happened to Kat's helmet.

"I'm getting a call?" Kat asked confused for a few seconds, realising it was coming from the standard radio built into her helmet; so, it had to be from a radio, which no one else on the planet had except…

"Jorge?" She asked in confusion as she heard the sound of gunfire and plasma weaponry firing.

"Kat! We need help, Vale Central hospital, everything's gone very wrong! We need an evac, can you get to the roof, or get someone to get to the roof we can't get a signal through!"

"What's going on?" Kat responded while gesturing towards the pilot to get moving as he looked back at them.

"We're being overrun, I, look everything, listen we need evacuation ship's, can you get any more."

"On it, well be there as soon as we can. We aren't losing anyone else today." Kat practically growled as she stood up and clenched her mechanical fist.

...

 **Authors notes: Thank you to the guest who pointed out I wrote 'Elites' instead of 'Brutes' That was embarassing and I can do nothing but apologise. (For those of you reading after I correct this yes I am that stupid.)**


	97. Chapter 97

Chapter 97: Doctor can you help me with this minor plasma wound

Jorge decided that kicking the door down was a fun way to enter a building, he then realised he needed to get on with finding his wife and mother in law.

Well after blasting the heads off a few Grimm that were loitering around in the lobby.

"Okay, where's Lucy?" Jorge asked, looking around as if a sign saying: 'Baby check over here' or something similar was going to be on the wall.

"Assuming the layout hasn't changed much in forty years…" Danel muttered, spinning around as he remembered bringing Ursus here when she was pregnant (That news had not been the best thing to reveal during the second meeting he's had with her parents) and looking for the right way to go. "…This way!" He declared, gesturing for Jorge to follow him as they set off down the corridor.

The two men were not put at ease as they creeped down the corridors, the occasional stopping to figure out directions was not putting either of them at ease.

However, the real reason it was bad was not the time limit, if it was just that then there wouldn't be much of a reason to worry. After all it was possible this one building would have been missed during a massive Grimm attack (Not likely but still possible) However, the problem was this: Plasma burns do not appear in buildings that have been left alone during an attack.

And on top of this their frequency was getting higher the closer they got to where they were going. It went from jolting when Jorge spotted one burn on the wall to near constant heart attacks as they entered scorched black corridors.

"Grimm couldn't have done this…" Jorge muttered as they entered another black corridor, carefully stepping around a hole that had been burned into the floor. "…Could they?"

"Some might have been able to, Anguis Grimm are nasty, think a King Taijiu but with three heads that all breath fire." Daniel commented. "Dealt with a nest of them a few years back with Port, infested a rather large section of Forever fall, nasty stuff, anyway those Grimm can breathe fire, but I've never seen them do this much damage to anywhere."

"So, we've got an armed force to fight, great…" Jorge muttered. As if he wasn't worried enough about what had happened to his wife.

"Wait, I see something!" Daniel cried, grabbing Jorge by the arm, demonstrating remarkable strength as he stopped the Spartan two (Which confirmed to Jorge that all of Remnant was broken, a squad of marines couldn't stop him normally when he wanted to go somewhere) as pointed to a shadow cast on the wall.

Jorge looked at the shape, it seamed to be leering out of the corridor, large and hunched over. He couldn't tell what it was immediately, once he did he took notice of the lack of glow coming from the robot.

Slowly Jorge advanced, nudging it with his guns barrel, jumping back and aiming his gun at the thing as its mechanical body slammed to the ground; the resulting clang echoing down the halls.

"A machine?" Daniel inquired as he looked at the shell.

"Yeah, A Promethean Knight by the looks of it." Jorge explained as he looked down at the body, noticing a large hole where the creature's waist should have been. "Someone knew what they were doing…"

"Hmm…" Daniel muttered, looking down at the ground. "…Yes they must have, I'm going to try something." He explained before his eyes lit up, glowing blue as he looked down at the ground. "Yes, I thought so!" He declared happily.

"What is it?" Jorge asked, looking at his father in laws eyes and suspecting he was going to learn what his semblance was.

"The footsteps, everyones heading this way." He explained. "My Semblance lets me see tracks that have long faded away; useful on hunts, however the person who did this seems to have lead a group from where we were going down here." He explained, pointing down a T junction as he began to follow the tracks he could apparently see.

Instantly the two knew they were on the right path, or at least the best path they could follow right now. Mostly because of the multiple disembowelled Promethan's scattered around the halls as all of them gingerly stepped over the wreckage.

"Are we near them?" Jorge asked, frustrated he couldn't see anything that his Father in Law could and thus was completely in the dark about basically everything.

"I think so, we need to…" Daniel began to answer before something happened.

The wall of the corridor just in front of them sort of exploded/shattered as someone came charging through, pushing a Promethean with their shoulders and slamming the bot into the wall, before it could come to its senses and aim it's guns at its opponent said opponent lashed out and drove her fist through the Prometheans head. Ripping it out and pushing her hair out of her face and grinning as she looked around.

"Jorge! Dad!" Lucy cried, grinning as she walked towards them.

"Lucy." Jorge asked, looking at his wife and down the hall at the wrecked Prometheans. "Did you destroy all the robots?"

"Yup!" Lucy said, nodding happily as she looked at him.

"I frigging love you!" Jorge declared, pulling his wife tight as she returned (It said something that he could feel the hug through the heavy duty armor)

"I'd hope you did." Lucy said with a grin as she looked around. "Where's Noble Team? I thought you'd be with them." She explained as she looked down the corridor as if expecting to see the rest of Noble team standing there.

"I came to help, didn't know you had everything solved." Jorge admitted, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "Might have thought having a baby would have slowed you down a bit…"

"Give it a month." Ursus said calmly as she stepped through the hole Lucy had made in the wall. "Anyway, it's good to see you two."

"Ursus!" Daniel cried happily. "What happened? We only just got here and…"

"We'll explain in a minute, come on we need your help to reach the roof and call for help." The woman explained, smiling warmly at her husband as she gestured towards the hole in the wall.

…

Once the four of them were in the operating theatre (Which was a complete mess because of all the Prometheans smashed up remains which had totalled the room) which also held another group of people, a number of doctors, nurses and patients.

"They attacked just after they were done checking up on me." Lucy explained to her Dad and Jorge as she leant against the wall. "One of them burst through the window and after I was done kicking that one's head off I tried to find as many people as I could."

"And the kid…?" Jorge asked nervously, not wanting to criticise her for acting bravely (That was the absolute last thing he wanted to do) but he was terrified for the child and she had said she needed to cut down the exercise she was doing while carrying.

"Fine, most of my Auras going to him and protecting my womb." Lucy explained. "I don't like it because it leaves the rest of me exposed but it's the best I could do, couldn't just stand there and do nothing could I?"

"Off course not!" Daniel declared, thumping his daughter on thr back and grinning. "I will never have it said my little girl is a coward."

"Dad I've been taller than you for twenty five years now." Lucy commented as she looked at her husband who'd gone quite all of a sudden. "Jorge you okay?"

"You said him…?" Jorge explained, looking at her for an answer.

"Oh yeah!" Lucy cried, slapping herself in the face and grinning. "Normally they wouldn't be able to tell with the early scans, but they got a good view and, well… we're going to have a son." She said, beaming as she looked at Jorge.

"That's, that's…" Jorge began, unable to get a proper answer out… although he was never given the chance to when someone near the window yelled:

"We've got more incoming!" He yelled, darting away from the window just in time to avoid getting blasted with a burst of plasma.

"Shit!" Lucy swore. "How did the info get out, none of our transitions have been going out!"

"Probably not using the CCT network." Jorge explained, looking towards the tower… which was apparently not were he thought it was seeing as they sky was empty around its location.

"Well we might be able to push through…" Lucy commented, not looking completely convinced. "It would be better if we could evacuate though, which we can't do because I can't get my fucking scroll to work!"

"You're not aloud to have that on while at the hospital!" Cried a doctor in the crowd, who promptly shut up under the pressure of the glares everyone was giving him.

"I might have something." Jorge explained as he turned his helmet radio on. "Let me see if I can get through to anyone…" He was cut off as more plasma was shot into the room, burning a hole into the wall (Worryingly some shots were full on disintegrating part of the wall) "We can't stay here!" He yelled as Lucy began to chivvy everyone out of the room.

"So where should we go then?" The same Doctor who'd spoken earlier called.

"The roof, if we're getting out it's probably going to be by air." Jorge explained as he was finally able to get Kat on the radio.

" _Jorge?"_ She asked, her voice sounding surprised as she spoke.

"Kat! We need help, Vale Central hospital, everything's gone wrong! We need an evac, can you get to the roof, or get someone to get to the roof? We can't get a signal though!"

" _What's going on?"_ Kat responded, clearly not getting all the details from Jorge's warning.

"We're being overrun, I, look everything, listen we need evacuation ship's, can you get any more?" He elaborated (Badly)

"On it, we'll be there as soon as we can. We aren't losing anyone else today." Kat said before her transmission cut out.

"Kat! Kat, we lost you! What do you mean anyone else!?" Jorge cried, only getting static for a response. "Dammit."

"Has something gone wrong with them?" Lucy asked, looking to her husband who shook his head.

"Probably, well, look warring isn't doing me any good and if somethings happened… Well I hope it hasn't but… what can I do?" Jorge explained. "Right now we need to get everyone out of this hospital before those Prometheans catch up."

"I might be able to do more if I had my weapons." Lucy said, gesturing to Jorge who suddenly realised he still had her claws tucked under his arms (He was glad to take them out, he could only just hold his gun and not drop them) He took them out before realsing something.

"Hang on, you said you couldn't use them with he baby, couldn't move around as much as you needed to…"

"Knew I forgot about something…" Lucy muttered darkly as she looked down at her belly. "…I love the tyke but he's… Huh?" She jolted, snapping out of her monolog as Jorge handed her a different weapon.

"Your chain gun…?" She asked uncertainly as she looked down at the chain gun he's just given to her.

"You don't need to move around too much to use it and you're strong enough to hold it easily." He explained with a smile as she lifted the gun into the firing stance.

"Thanks, but what are you going to do?" She asked with concerne as Jorge laughed.

"I'm a Spartan two; Trust me I don't need a gun to kill anything." He explained.

"Well I'm not, Lucy dear would you mind if I took your claws?" Ursus asked, reaching down for the dropped weapons.

"Go ahead Mom, now come on, lets get to the roof and…" Lucy began before a loud explosion drew their attention. Specifically, the Mountain that used to decorate the Vale land scape exploded open. A massive giant forced itself free.

"Is that a dragon!" Jorge cried, looking at the beast in shock.

"This isn't going to make the rescue easy is it?" Lucy commented dryly as she looked at it.


	98. Chapter 98

Chapter 98: Dragon Round 1

The atmosphere of pissed on board the evac ship heading towards the Vale General Hospital would have been crushing provided everyone else on the ship wasn't suffering from the same condition.

"How far off the hospital are we?" Carter asked the Pilot, who glanced over at one of her instruments.

"We're about five minutes off." She explained. "The others ETA is about fifteen minutes after that."

"Okay, we should hang around and protect everyone else on the roof just in case…" Carter began before his attention was taken away from the mission towards something that was definitely going to be causing problems for this mission.

What appeared to be a Dragon was flying at them, and it looked angry.

"Brace!" The pilot yelled, sending the ship into a roll to avoid being knocked out of the air by the flying air born creature.

"What's going on back there!" Velvet cried as she stuck her head through the doorway to look at the creatures.

"We've got a problem." Carter responded, looking to the pilot. "Is this thing armed?"

"We got two machine guns, they're fairly powerful but I'm not sure they'll work against something that big." The Pilot explained, pointing to a targeting reticle on her screen. "They're made for fighting smaller Nevermores and Lancers."

"Well we haven't got anything else, we need to draw that thing away from the hospital if the rescue ships are going to make it." Carter said, gripping a part of the wall to steady himself as he prepared for the fight to get much worse.

"You want me to run a distraction mission!" The Pilot gapsed, her eyes going wide as she froze at the controls. "Are you crazy! I can't do that! It didn't work! I can't do it!"

"Listen!" Carter called, looking down at the pilot and gripping her shoulder. "What's your name!"

"I, What?" The Confused Pilot asked, looking up at Carter in confusion.

"Your name, what is it?" Cartyer asked again, forcing his voice to be as calm as possible as he looked at her, something was going on with her and he had to snap her out of it.

"I, Emily, Emily Oxford." The Pilot said as she adjusted her helmet, moving her red hair out of the way of her eyes.

"Emily, there are civilians down there; we're the only ones who can do something about it." Carter said, squeezing her shoulder. "We have to help."

"But you can't let me do that!" Emily gasped, looking up at Carter in shock. "I can't! Believe me, someone trusted me to do it once before and…"

"What happened before doesn't matter." Carter said firmly. "Sometimes bad stuff happens, sometimes you wish you could go back and try something again, sometimes you would love nothing more than to change the past. But you can't, you need to keep moving and stop more bad happening, Emily, We need to get that Dragon away from the civilians. Will you help me?"

"Don't think Lena would forgive me if I didn't." Emily responded, still looking completely scared out of her mind but gripping the controls resolutely.

"Good, send a burst of fire at the creature's head then fly away from the hospital as fast as humanly possible." Carter said before ducking back to the passenger hold of the ship.

"What's the plan?" Emile immediately asked, looking up from sharpening one of his various knives. Jumping to his feet in a second and looking at his Team leader.

"We need to draw that Dragon away form the hospital." Carter explained. "Kat call Jorge, tell them not to expect us when we arrive and to just get in the rescue ships, we'll circle back around and catch up to them once we've got this thing done."

"What about us?" Emile asked immediately.

"We need gunners, Coco get by one of the doors and shoot that thing as much as you can." Carter explained. "Emile make sure she doesn't fall out the plane, keep a grip on her and stay magnetized, I don't know what kind of aerial manoeuvres we're going to have to do."

"What about us?" Velvet asked, pointing between herself and Ilia.

"Stay safe, unless you have long range guns on you then you should try to stay safe." Carter said, looking at Velvet as she looked at the wooden box she had tied to the back.

"Erm… Actually…" She said with a small smile.

…

"What's going on?" Lucy asked as she looked up at Jorge who had just finished having another conversation with Kat.

"We got to hold for a little bit longer." Jorge explained pointing up at the Grimm Dragon. "I'm going to meet up with them back at Beacon."

"Okay, we should…" Lucy began, but for what felt like the hundredth time she was cut off by a loud blast of gunfire, coming from the door up to the roof.

"They're here!" Jorge yelled. "Everyone get away from the door!"

…

"It's on our ass!" Emily called back having taken a quick glance at her screens.

"Okay, Coco, Velvet get into position!" Carter called as the two ran to either side of the ship. Shortly joined by Emile who held onto Coco and Kat who gripped Velvet.

"Ilia, open the door!" Carter called, the Chameleon girl nodded and pulled the release hatch for the doors as the Spartans armor powered up, magnetizing their boots as they held on.

"Coco open fire, Velvet hold off it for now!" Carter called as Coco let her mini gun do it's thing.

The Dragon did not appreciate the gunfire, it's skull plate had minor damage on it already (Emphasis on minor) from Emily's Bullhead firing on it and the minigun's bullets were just as annoying to the creature.

"Okay I got the things attention!" Coco yelled as the dragon began to close in, then her heart stopped as she looked back at the Grimm and realised it had sped up. "And I think I pissed it off!"

"It's closing faster!" Emily cried as she urged her ship forwards faster.

"How far off is it!" Carter yelled to Coco.

"About ten meters off us!" Coco yelled, only just appreciating how big her target was. As it opened its titanic jaws she realised it could easily swallow the ship hole.

Desperately Coco opened fire again, hoping the beast gaping aw of flesh and razor-sharp teeth would be more acceptable to her bullets than the head had been.

It wasn't, and something was building up in the Grimm's mouth, an energy spinning and pulsating as it looked at the ship. The smell was immense, a smell that wrecked of death and decay (Also for some reason; a hint of oranges)

The bubble of energy was reaching it's peak now, the black pulsation ooze finally reaching it's maximum size, The Grimm reared open its mouth to fire.

The black stream of energy was intense, shooting out and warping the air around it. Cold surged through anyone near to the shot, the black energy that used to be goop pulsating with purple lightning.

"Crap! I think one of the wings just took major damage!" Emily yelled as the ship suddenly angled to the left, forcing Coco and Emile backwards while Kat hung onto Velvet for dear life.

"Can you stabilise!" Carter yelled back desperately.

"I need a few seconds!" She yelled. "Take over flying for a sec I need to work on some things" She then dived out of the seat Carter promptly leapt into, gripping the controls and pulling it up, trying to by the failing ship as much time in the air as possible.

"Guys!" Velvet cried, currently hanging out of the side of the ship and the only one who could clearly see the Dragon. "It's readying another shot!"

…

The Grimm readied it's finally blast, preparing to destroy the ship when a blast of blue fire shot out towards it, striking the creature's blast. The fire ignited the stuff inside the Grimms mouth and exploded, forcing the flying beast to stager back in pain.

It wasn't the only one, the surge of light had been immense and everyone on the ship had been stunned by it for a few seconds (Even Fin who's helmet was meant to filter out flashes like that. Kat was the worst effected having been looking directly at the explosion, she staggered back, letting go of Velvet who seemed to fall out of the ship, bouncing on a glowing blue replica of one of Weiss' Dust created Glyphs, a glowing blue replica of Myrtenaster in her hand.

"Velvet!" Kat cried as Coco staggered forwards, a grin on her face.

"Don't worry, she's got this." She said with a grin, watching what happened.

…

Velvet was terrified beyond all conceivable measure, if that thing had been given a chance to fire again… She didn't want to think about it. So with the last of this summons energy she shot of another blast of fire, quickly summoning a construct of Crescent Rose and aiming it behind her, pulling the trigger as the recoil brought her more time in the air. Carefully she lined up a shot with the beast's eye and fired.

Not taking a second to stop as the creature roared in pains he flung herself over the Dragon with another shot. Knowing this construct wasn't going to last long she dug the scythe blade into the creature's other eye. The Dragon was screaming now, its roar sending a cold shiver down her entire body as she fell from the beast, growling she reached for another.

Penny's swords came out, preying they were attacked to her as they were to their owner Velvet sent them off, digging into the tough black scales of the Dragon and flinging herself over them as she pulled herself towards the swords, flipping over in midair she called the weapons back to her and span them around, seeing the pulse of energy around the centre she open fired, blasting the Grimm in the head, not enough to kill it but enough to shatter part of the skull, exposing the red interior of the creature.

A quick blast from Yang's Ember Celica sent her back towards the creature and a series of shotgun blasts down at the exposed creatures open wound. When that failed she called Nora's Magnhild to her, slamming down towards the Dragon and firing off the most powerful strike she could muster.

The Dragon screamed again, rearing up as slits in it's back opened up as back ooze burst free as the shaggy black Grimm broke free, coated in black gunk like a chick just free from its egg the creatures charged at her.

Velvet almost let out a smile as Sun's staff came to her hands, spinning Ruyi and Jingu Bang around like crazy and firing at the charged Beowolf's. blasting chunk's out of the newly created monsters as they charged at her.

That was when something went wrong, a splatter of the Black Gunk was flung at her as an Ursa burst free from the pustule on the Dragons back.

The stuff burnt, seeming to drill straight through her Aura and burning through her outfit to her arm and injuring her arm.

"Argh!" She cried as Sun's staff shattered, dispelling as she looked around, clutching her face as staggered back, struggling to stay on the Grimm's back. A struggle that failed as the Dragon suddenly took a sharp flight up, flinging the rabbit Faunus off.

Velvet knew what she needed, Coco had never tried this trick, but Velvet was sure it would work, pulling her girlfriends mini gun to her hands she aimed down and open fired, the blow back from the gun was enough to keep her in the air long enough for the dragon to finish its loop and allow her to land on it's back.

Smiling she reached out for another weapon as more Grimm approached her.

A battle Rifle materialised in her hands, taking aim she blasted the Grimm straight to the head, efficiently slaying a majority of the ones charging at her. Then an Energy sword came once that construct was gone she ran forwards and slashed through a charging group of Boarbatusks before leaping into the air, rolling as she hit he ground and feeling a distinct sense of glee flow through her as she blasted an Alpha Beowolf with a Tactical Shotgun. Finishing off the rest of the pack with a Minigun and stabbing them with Lucy's Burning claws.

Most of the Grimm left on the Dragons back were gone now so she was free to approach the open wound on the Dragons head. As she called for her last weapon she couldn't help but feel some tears flowing from her eyes as a long hammer shaft began to conjure into her hands.

She leapt into the air the weapon materialised into her hands. The blade on it's head growing to full size as she swung down, the blue blast that exploded from it was just as deadly as it had looked in the stadium. A huge force of power broke free and drove into the open wound on the beast's skull as it was sent crashing to the ground. Velvet felt the tears flow stronger as her replica of Mjolnir disappeared from her hands, vanishing as she began to fall, crashing into Emily's bullhead, having flown underneath her and turning to it's side so Velvet could fall into the open door, getting caught By Emile and Kat as they skidded back after catching her.

Velvet was promptly dropped as the shop righted itself as the door closed.

"That was awesome." Emile declared, thumping the rabbit girl on the back.

"Yeah it was." Coco said, grinning as she looked down at her girlfriend. "To think people think I'm the strong one out of the two of us."

"Yeah…" Velvet sighed. "Now can we save those people, I don't think I have that in my again."


	99. Chapter 99

Chapter 99: Getting the hell off this stadium!

JNPR and LTRC had not been having a good day, admittedly no one in Vale that day had been having a good day; but this was bad even by the current standard of today.

Being on board when the stadium got over run by Grimm had been bad, having to take out that giant Nevermore had been really bad.

There was no word to describe how bad being on a floating stadium crashing towards the ground after having its gravity Dust crystal was.

"We need to get out of here!" Jaune cried, looking up through the open centre of the stadium, they were holding for now but the clouds were definitely moving away from them, which because of where they were standing meant the stadium was slowly falling.

"How!?" Tank cried, her eyes wide as she looked around the stadium.

"Oh come on, they wouldn't have left without a rescue ship still docked." Carly explained, beaming as she turned around to look at the members of JNPR, who for some reason weren't meeting her eyes.

"Erm…" Jaune began, wondering how he would explain that was exactly what they'd done given they didn't expect the stadium to drop and also hadn't considered that a possibility.

"Okay then! Plan Awesome is back in effect!" Carly declared, her eyes wide as she looked around at the group, her right hand clenching and unclenching as she looked around. "What have we got, Lena you send out pushes of energy we might be able to use, Tank you make your skin super hard, not helpful at all here, Rouge you've got enhanced eyesight, might be useful… YOU FOUR WHAT DO YOU DO!? She asked/yelled, her head jolting up out of its deep thought as she pointed at all of them. "AND BE QUICK ABOUT IT, WE CAN'T WASTE TIME!"

"I don't have a semblance…" Jaune admitted, looking down at the ground.

"It's fine, we…"

"TIME AND PLACE LADY! JUST TELL ME YOUR POWER!" Carly yelled, overriding Pyrrha's attempts to console her boyfriend.

"I have Polarity, it lets me…"

"I KNOW WHAT MAGNATISUM IS! STOP WASTEING TIME! YOU GREENY!" Carly screamed, pointing at Ren who stared at her blankly and said.

"I mask people from Grimm."

"Well that might be helpful… Come on I got the pieces now to figure this effin' jigsaw out…" Carly muttered, looking at the ground she spotted something and snatched it up before rounding on Pyrrha. "Red float this!"

From the looks the rest of LTRC was giving her Pyrrha turned on her semblance and pulled the lump of metal towards her.

"Good, can you do that again but bigger?" Carly asked, her eyes sharpening as she looked intently at the red head who nodded.

"Yes, but what's your plan?" Pyrrha asked, wondering how such a bubbly girl could suddenly go so serious.

"That was a shard of that." Carly explained, pointing a finger to part of the stadiums roof. Normally they were located about sixty meters above the combat area and were meant to keep the rain of spectators int eh event the shields failed. This one however had been knocked down by the Nevermore when it broke into the stadium and was only a few feet from them.

"Are you suggesting I float that out?" Pyrrha asked.

"Yup. Just straight up and then down slowly once this thing hit whatever's below us." Carly explained. "Can you do that?"

"Yes." She said, nodding as she looked at the lump of metal, in theory they'd all fit on board.

"Well then get on, come on people I think the crystals starting to fail." Carly snapped, pointing towards the lump as everyone got on board.

The L, T and R that made up Team LTRC suspected the flaw in Carly's plan as they clambered onto the strip of metal, and it was confirmed when everyone but her had found a space/hand hold on it.

"We're out of room." Jaune noted, looking around at the now very full lump of roof.

"Yes, I am afraid my friends that this is where I must leave you." Carly explained solemnly. "I knew my plan would not get me out of here, but do not fear, for I die happy; knowing I got you free and I only hope that you remember me, tell them of my story, tell them that…"

 _Thonk._

"No." Tank said boredly, pulling her arm back from where she had just hit her teammate around the head with her dusters, reaching out and retrieving the girl, pulling her on board the platform as Lena and Rouge used their free hands to grip the girl.

"What was that?" Jaune asked in shock as they looked at the now passed out girl.

"Start floating and we'll explain." Lena said, looking at the girl as her eyes fell.

Pyrrha nodded and began to call on her semblance, in theory this was simple, she just had to push the bit of metal they were sitting on away from the metal making up the stadium below her.

To her slight surprise this actually worked and just in time, if she had waited a second longer the stadium would have fallen before she got the platform in the air, almost instantly she started to lower the platform, the further away their platform was from the stadium the harder it was going to be to keep it in the air.

"So… What was that?" Nora eventually asked, looking at Carly with concern. "I mean, she seamed very…"

"The Commander has always been a bit odd." Lena explained. When that failed to be an adequate explanation she sighed and continued. "Look, have you ever heard of a passive Semblance?"

Everyone on JNPR shook their heads other than Pyrrha, who nodded but was clearly focusing more on the platform than giving an explanation, so Lena continued.

"Long story short we all have an active semblance, in the sense of we activate it when we need it and basically use it as a super power. Carly is different, she possesses a passive semblance; she doesn't have the ability to turn it off, mostly it's just running in the background and occasionally it builds up into the Commander."

"But what is her semblance?" Jaune asked, wondering how it made… whatever that was.

"I was getting to that." Lena muttered, rolling her eye. "The Commander is the build up of her hyper awareness. She's always processing every single tiny thing about her environment, let her walk through a building and she'll be able to tell you every single detail about it… provided she focuses long enough to do it."

"So, she'd got a photographic memory?" Ren asked, wondering how that counted as a semblance.

"No, when I say every single detail, I mean **Every** detail. How heavy something is, how many things in a cupboard she's never seen opened, how many people have ever sat foot inside the building…"

"One time told us the number of people who had gone behind a certain rock for their 'Special time'" Rouge muttered darkly.

"They didn't need to hear that." Lena hissed.

"But how does that lead to…?" Nora asked.

"…The Commander? Long story short that's how she handles all the information, 'Carly' shuts down to some degree leaving only the tactical part of her brain on, normally she's so overloaded she can't prioritise anything; its why she's so scatter brained." Lena explained. "She literally knows far to much for her own good and working out what's actually helpful is very difficult for her"

"Wait, her tactical side is a suicidal nut job?" Jaune asked in confusion.

"Well, she is now." Lena said, her eyes falling to the knocked-out girl as she felt the usual guilt. "She wasn't always but… look it's not my place to say what happened to her; but the reason she's nearly always so happy is that her life has been way worse, The Commander however… didn't take it as well as she did."

"She leaves herself out of her plans now." Tank explained. "It's why we try to avoid letting her fight alone if we can help it, she'll throw herself in front of a bus for someone is she had to with no consideration to how she herself will get out, time was she used to but now… Dammit I should have stopped them…"

"You don't have to say anymore." Ren said, gently reaching out and putting a hand on Tank's shoulder, a hand that was soon joined by Nora's as the two smiled at her before turning to look at each other, their eyes locked.

The sweet moment was interrupted as Carly leant in close, grinning as her hair flopped down as she looked intently at Ren and Nora.

"Erm…" Nora began to say, nervously looking at Carly.

"Don't mind me, I'm just waiting for the kiss." She said with a silly grin on her face as she looked at the two from her position of being held on her back across her teammates. "I don't need my semblance to know that's coming."

Neither Ren or Nora said anything for a few seconds before Nora suddenly sprang forwards, grabbing Ren and pulling him into a deep kiss which he returned eagerly (You could actually see emotion on his stoic face he was so eager)

"You know if there was room on this platform I'd suggest we give them some space." Lena commented dully.

"Yeah, but trust me this has been a long time coming, I mean you'd have to be blind to not know those two liked each other." Jaune said, before noticing the look Pyrrha was giving him. "oh… erm…"

"When I've landed this thing…" Pyrrha said simply as she tried to keep the fall steady.

"Oh look, thinking of the ground!" Carly called happily as she moved her attention away from Ren and Nora's make out session and pointed towards the stadium below them.

The Stadium which at that point had just hit the ground, hard.

It was mesmerising to watch as the stadium flattened itself, debris moving up and piercing the higher levels as the stadium kind of inverted itself into a mountain of scrap metal… that promptly exploded as the energy from the gravity dust crystal escaped as it shattered. Energy exploding out and destroying everything that was left of the stadium… and they were still in the path of that explosion.

"We need to move!" Carly suddenly yelled, the Commander back in control. "Red can you move us!?"

"No, there's nothing to push away from so…" Pyrrha explained before Carly butted in:

"I DIDN'T NEED YOUR LIFE STORY! LENA GET US OUT OF HERE!"

" **On it!"** She yelled, aiming her right hand towards the approaching explosion, letting the energy surge into her hand and explode out of her hand, pushing the platform away from the explosion.

"We're not gonna make it!" Tank cried, screaming as loud as she possibly could as she looked at the towering inferno surging towards them.

"DON'T PANIC MAGOT!" Carly screamed, turning to look down at her as best as she could. "WE ARE GONNA FUCKING MAKE THIS! DO YOU HERE ME!"

Tank didn't answer, she mostly just braced and got ready for the piece of stadium to hit the sea bellow them, sending a surge of water out as the metal platform skimmed to a halt.

"That was awesome!" Nora cried once all of their hearts returned to a normal beat per minute average.

…

It was about half an hour before JNPR and LTRC found a way out of the sea and off their platform. Firstly they had to wait for the towering pillar of fire that was the stadium a few minutes ago die down and then wait for rescue crafts to come towards them.

"Hey I see something!" Nora cried, grinning as she pointed towards a ship that was kind of flying towards them.

"They aren't going to see us from over there." Rouge pointed out.

"Well let's change that!" Nora grinned maniacal, pulling Magnhild of her back, popping the front off and sending her trade mark 'Heart of destruction' up into the sky, a massive pink explosion ion the shape of a heart.

Its function as a beacon was fulfilled as the ship turned around and came back towards them, the Bullhead approached, and its hatch opened up, revealing Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang standing inside, offering them a hand off there platform.

"You guys okay?" Yang asked as she pulled Jaune off the platform.

"As well as we can be given the circumstances." He answered with a week grin.

"Well that's about all we could expect." Blake commented as she helped Carly up.

"Yeah…" Ruby commented, looking at the ground as Lena was hauled aboard.

"Ruby are you okay?" Weiss asked, looking at her girlfriend with a note of concerned in her voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine… just… do you guys feel like we should have been doing more during all this?" Ruby asked, looking mostly at JNPR and her team.

"I… Erm…" Weiss responded, not fully sure how to answer herself.

…

 **Authors notes: Just wanted to point this out: Team LTRC's Lena is not the same one Emily was on about in the last chapter. That was probably super obvious but I just wanted to be sure.**

 **If you were confused I apologise, this is what I get for referencing Overwatch over my story making sense.**


	100. Chapter 100

Chapter 100: Lets make sure no overkill can ever overkill what we do to that asshole

"They've broken through!" Jorge yelled as the Prometheans erupted onto the roof, a stream of metallic glowey orange death… Good thing for the refugees they had a Spartan II on their side.

That alone would probably have been enough (even if he was unarmed) but add that with a Wife armed with a high-power chain gun, a Father in law armed with a rifle/crossbow thing and a Mother in law armed with high power cutting claws and the Prometheans might as well be in a barrel for how unfair it was on them.

Daniel's rifle proved ineffective with his normal shots, so it was a good thing for him that it was capable of far more. While Ursus improvised with her daughters claws he loaded his special black bolts into the top of his crossbow.

"Jorge my boy! I believe you wanted to know what a gravity trap was?" Daniel called as the crossbow bulled the shot back.

"Yeah I did!" Jorge called, jumping up and punching a watcher that had strayed to close to the group with his fists and sending it flying.

"Well then!" Daniel cried as he pulled the second trigger which shot the black bolt off, it flew through the broken door the Prometheans had shattered in their efforts to get on the roof and slammed into the end of the corridor.

While none of them were close enough to hear it the bolt then began to work it's magic, the back half sliding away and opening onto a solid black void with a white glow surrounding it. This hyper concentrated compound was designed to mimic Gravity Dust, only stronger.

When exposed to the air the compound reacted, pulling hard at everything, ripping posters of the walls, tiles of the ceilings and pulling Prometheans back towards it. With Lucy aiming Jorge's gun down the corridor it was almost to easy to gun down a large percentage of their attackers.

Those who didn't fall to the Gravity bolts powers soon encountered the melee efforts of Jorge and his mother in law. The two moved as fast as they could stabbing/smashing the heads of the Knights that broke through.

"The Ships are here!" One of the refugees called, her eyes wide as the airships began to pull up along the side of the hospital.

"Everyone get in we'll cover you!" Jorge yelled as he grabbed a Promethean rifle and freed it from its user's hands, turning it on said user and several of his companions, abandoning it when it needed to reload, opting to just snatch another on off of the ground.

The four fought hard until they heard the call:

"Everyone off, get on board now!" One of the refugees called, turning the family saw that this was true and sprinted back towards the ship, Daniel using another Black Bolt on the hospitals roof to delay their pursuers.

"Lucy get on!" Jorge called urgently as he took his gun back as she was helped onboard by some of the others.

"We only got room for two more here!" The Pilot yelled. "One of you will have to stay!"

"Go." Jorge said instantly as he began to give out covering fire. "Noble Team will come get me."

"They better, this baby's having a Dad!" Lucy called, grinning a rather forced grin as she gave him the thumbs up and blew him a kiss (She found these were better in a combat environment than an actual make out due to how much quicker and less distracting they were)

"Go!" Jorge yelled as he rammed the butt of his gun into a downed but still alive Knights skull.

Wishing he could watch her leave Jorge booted up his helmet radio.

"Guys, I need a lift." He called, praying for Kat to return the call.

"What happened to the other ships?" Kat asked incredulously.

"Overfilled now please come get me!" He responded as he open fired on more of them, fully aware that his ammo must be running low by this point.

"We're on it big guy!" Emile responded over his own helmet. "We aren't losing anyone else today."

The minute and ten seconds it took for Emily to bring her rescue ship around felt far longer to Jorge then it actually was, but it was there and with a plasma grenade to remember him by they were gone.

…

"What did you do with that Dragon?" Jorge asked as he boarded the ship, slinging his gun over his shoulder.

"Nothing, that was Vel's doing." Coco said with a massive grin as she gestured to the blushing bunny girl (Who also looked like she was about to pass out from all the energy she'd exerted) "Man you should have seen her, it's always a treat when she gets to let lose."

"Glad you're happy…" Velvet smiled weakly. "But I don't think I killed it, I think it's just knocked out."

"Velvet if that's true then you K.O'd a Grimm that needed a mountain to contain it. Simply put: you're still the most badass girlfriend ever… Fuck!" Coco swore as she looked at Ilia who had scowled darkly at that saying.

"It's not your fault Coco." Ilia responded as she continued to scowl at the ground. "It's Turaks, and once we're back at Beacon I'm going to pick up a shit ton of weaponry, fly up to him and kill him in every single violent way I can."

"Same." Emile nodded as he looked over at the rest of them.

"We all feel the same." Jorge said. "But we need to be careful, Turak hasn't exactly proven easy to hurt let alone kill in the past."

"I blew his arm off." Ilia pointed out.

"Yes, how did you do that?" Kat asked. "I know it was embarrassing seeing as you two… you looked embarrassed when it was brought up."

"Oh that." Ilia said, smiling weekly as she looked at Kat (The Murderous intent in her eyes kind of ruined the warmth of the gesture) "Yeah Six distracted him with a one on one duel while I stripped naked and crawled up the wall, stuck an explosive on his arm. Thought that would have killed him though…"

"Well that's probably biology working against you, not a problem with your strategy." Kat explained kindly. "Think you could get another explosive on him?"

"I'm willing to try!" The Chameleon girl declared, gritting her teeth (it may have been an attempt at a grin… if that was true it was not successful) looking down at her hands and clenching them into fists.

"Great, but do you really think we should be expecting Turak to go down so easily?" Emile asked, looking at the rest of his team. "Like, he knows about that trick now, he probably won't fall for the same trick twice."

"I can do it." Ilia said firmly, looking at Emile with a slightly annoyed look in her eyes.

"You sure about that?" He asked, standing up and letting his skull loom over her. "Because I'm not so sure about that myself."

"Really!?" She shot back, pushing her face up against the carved helmet. "And do pray tell: Why is that!?"

"For one thing you're acting like he hasn't already proven to be a tough bastard in the past." Emile shot back, a notable growl in his voice as he spoke. "And two you seem to think just running at the guy will work out fine!"

"Just run at them is your plan of action every time we get in a fight!" Ilia shot back angrily. "Why are you suddenly calling for variety now!?"

"Because it doesn't fucking work!" He yelled back.

"What are you on about!? I thought you were meant to be a badass! Or is that skull just a sign your compensating for something!" Ilia yelled back, pushing harder against Emile's helmet.

"Yeah, I ran in, I played distraction, thought it was unwinnable! Dammit Ilia I explained this to you already!" He cried in annoyance, pushing harder with his helmet.

"Really when was this!?" Ilia asked, forcing Emile's helmet back to where it was.

"Back on the ground at the CCT dumbass!" Emile cried back. "Back on the fucking ground. 'I believed the hype!' I'm a Spartan! We're the best! That's what we were always told, it didn't matter is we made mad charges, we'd make it back! Spartans always make it back! Spartans never die! Well news flash Ilia! I've seen every member of Noble Team die and believe me they were fucking dead!"

"Will you get to the fucking point already!" Ilia shouted, actually managing to repel Emile's helmet further.

"Fine! If we charge in we're going to die! We can't just fucking run in and pray we make it back because we won't! Dammit Ilia I know you're angry…"

"Yeah I'm fucking angry!" Ilia screamed back. "And I don't care! We've got to kill that bastard!"

"It wont fucking work Ilia!" Emile yelled back. "Thinking you can always win is what got her killed in the first place!"

The passengers in Emily's Bullhead all froze as they looked at Emile in shock. He hadn't just said that, he wouldn't…

"Don't you dare…" Ilia finally forced out, looking directly into the skulls crude eyes.

"Look…" He began to say before Ilia yelled back.

"No! Don't you even suggest that her death was her fault!"

"Ilia…" Emile said, backing off and looking at her worriedly. "…That wasn't…"

"Yes, it was!" Ilia retorted. She wasn't yelling now but her voice had somehow become more dangerous sounding in its quiet. "How dare you…"

"Because what he says is true." Winter said, finally looking up from her corner. "Her plan was literally to run in and try and distract Turak, we didn't plan ahead and all of us failed to kill him when we fought. If he'd been dead when he hit the ground, he wouldn't have been able to detonated the CCT."

"But… There was nothing we could have done… his shields… She didn't… she didn't do anything wrong." Ilia said, her voice quite now with none of the intimidation it had had before.

"No, she didn't." Winter said, moving forwards and putting a hand on her shoulder. "But we couldn't prepare then. You have the time now, for Six's sake don't waste it because you're angry."

"I…" Ilia began as Winter walked up to the side of the Bullhead.

"The Atlas Command ships below us." Winter said simply. "I need to make sure the Altesian Knights have been deployed to the ground. If they're on the streets we can take them back and start finding people trapped."

"I…" Ilia began as Winter pulled the release switch for one of the doors, as it opened she turned to look at the young Faunus.

"Also, you should know this." Winter said, her face solid as she looked at Ilia. "It wasn't your fault either."

Winter jumped out then, her course set for the command ships main deck. Ilia stood there, her eyes staring off into space. Eventually she was jolted out of this space as another hand took a place on her shoulder. Turning around she saw Emile, having removed his helmet and deactivated his semblance so he could look at her properly. They stood there for a second before Emile pulled her into a hug.

"We're going to make this right, but we're all coming home." Emile said firmly as he let her go.

"Yeah… yeah we are…" She eventually concluded.

The moment was nice. It was a shame a moment was all they got.

Something suddenly streaked up from the ground, a blast of black power that raged towards the sky and that Emily only just dodged.

"Hey Rabbit girl!" Emily called, panic evident even as she tried to speak as politely as possible. "Don't suppose you could do your thing again could you?"

"No, I'd need more pictures… why?" Velvet asked, still slightly drained from her last fight.

"Because that Dragon? It's gotten up!" Emily called back.

"What!?" Everyone cried, gasping as they looked out the door Winter had left open.

The Dragon was back, enraged with its damaged eyes and injured back it was chasing the Bullhead with intent to smash the flying machine out of the sky.

"Emily it's building up another blast!" Emile yelled, handing out the side and looking at the energy build up inside the dragon's mouth.

"Hold on then!" She yelled back, bringing the ship into a sharp dive, rocketing towards the ground as a massive torrent of black energy shot off at them.

"That wasn't as big as the last one." Kat noted as she looked at the beam. "I think it's getting impatient."

"Oh great so lots of blasts to dodge, lucky me." Emily muttered bitterly.

"Carter what are we going to do?" Jorge asked, looking at his team leader. "We can't head to Beacon with this thing chasing us."

"True, but we can't get on board that Forerunner ship without restocking, none of us are as equipped as we should be." Carter pointed out.

"So we've got to take it out with one Bullhead that's not heavily armed?" Emile asked. "Got to be honest I'm not feeling it."

"We can't lead that thing towards civilians!" Carter pointed out.

"Yeah, but we can't fight it without weapons." Emile countered. "Besides there's a large number of Hunter's up there, erm, not like you Fin…"

 _I know what you meant._

"…Right, sorry. Anyway we can't fight that thing alone."

"You know you could just ask me." A voice said as an orange figure materialised inside the Bullhead. "I do have a forerunner ship at my control."

"Seven!" Noble Team cried as the AI grinned.

"That's my name!" She declared happily. "Remnant's Pride is moving into position, sorry it took so long to get here, I've been hiding it quite far away and I'm not opening a slip space drive this low to a planet, that drive hasn't worked in years and I do not want to risk it… Where's Six?"

"Dead, speaking of which can you please get that damn dragon!" Ilia yelled.

"Dead, what do you mean?" Seven asked, her body glitching and spasming as she tried to process this fact.

"Get the damn dragon!" Ilia yelled.

"Quickly please whoever the hell you are!" Emily yelled. "That thing's getting closer!"

Her instruments weren't lying, The Dragon had caught up, chasing the grey blur that held the thing that had hurt it so much. Rage flooded through it as more blasts started to form quicker and quicker, darts of black energy staining the sky as it fired.

"Okay, I need to get the guns in line, I… The fuck is that!?" Seven cried suddenly, her body glitching out again.

"Seven what's going on!?" Carter yelled as the AI's brain scrambled to try and find an answer.

"I don't know, something just entered out airspace and it's making a beeline for the dragon, at that speed it's not going to be able to… Pilot!" Seven cried, dematerialising in a second and reforming next to Emily, which understandably freaked the Pilot out as a glowing orange person appeared out of nowhere. "…Don't worry about the dragon! Jut gun it to Beacon!"

"But what about everyone there!" Emily yelled as she began to correct her course, changing course to head towards anyway because as a general rule following orders while questioning worked better than doing nothing until you had an explanation.

"That thing won't be a danger much longer!" Seven yelled as she vanished and re appeared near Carter. "Look this is important… WHOA!" She cried as Emily was forced to roll the ship to avoid the next blast the Dragon sent off. "Listen, I have a way of getting rid of Salem's ship! When you get to Beacon head to the main courtyard, I'm sending my AI chip down there. Once you've got it head her ship and get me to the main bridge, plug me in and I'll set the ship to jump far away from this planet and self-destruct."

"Wait, so if we can just get you to the bridge…" Kat muttered as the plan began to click together in her mind.

"…Then we don't need to worry about killing Turak!" Emile cried, punching the air. "We just need to get past him and we can let space and a massive explosion do its job, even if he lives the chances of him making it back are tiny!"

"Exactly!" Seven cried, a massive grin on her face. "So make sure you get me, I'll send the pod once you arrive."

"Erm, no to be a downer… but I can't help but notice that at no point in that plan did you mention how to get rid of the dragon." Ilia pointed out.

Seven didn't answer, she just pointed out the still open door. No one inside the Bullhead could see much of what was going on, but what they did see was a black triangle shape thing sore past them, make a huge arc and barrel towards the dragons head; impacting with it and exploding in a massive fiery torrent of power that vaporised the Grimm's head, sending it crashing towards the ground.

"The fuck was that!" Ilia cried, looking to the others for an answer.

"No idea." Carter admitted. "But it doesn't matter, we need to get to Beacon now."

"On it." Emily responded as she pushed the ship forwards.

…

Once the group had landed they didn't hang around, sprinting towards the courtyard and looking at the black spherical pod, reaching in and retrieving Seven. Carter was the one who took her, plugging the AI into the back of his helmet.

"Been a while since I was in a place like this." Seven commented as she made herself at home inside the helmet. "It's… homely."

"I'm glad you like it." Carter muttered as the group ran towards there room (the place where they kept most of their spare ammo and junk)

It was hard to be back in the room. They couldn't hang around long, both because they didn't have the time and because it hurt to much. Six had been using the room the longest and it showed. Her stuff was scattered everywhere, from the general artefacts like the discarded articles of clothing ending up basically wherever she left them; her various weapon parts scattered. But there was also the older stuff like her old ODST suit standing in the corner (Even if most of its dignity had been lost with her panties stuck on it's helmet) Her broken original attempt at armor kicked under her bed and covered in dust where she had forgotten it. But worst of all was the newer stuff she'd picked up when they'd been around. Her plushies sitting where she'd left them, fancier articles of clothing she never would have brought before then, The T-Shirt and cargo trousers she'd been wearing before Coco dragged her into the cheerleader's outfit.

Hardest to see of all was her battered and scratched Mjolnir armor. Standing on its stand exactly where it had been since their trip to Mountain Glen.

Ilia looked at it, she couldn't waste time, but she couldn't help but look at the armor and muttering: "it's your fault."

She knew it was unfair, the armor didn't have a will of its own, it wasn't like it was it's fault, but ilia was sure if she'd been able to wear it she would have survived the CCT explosion. If it had come when she needed it…

It wasn't time now, she could play the could have/should have game later, right now all she needed to do was get on board that ship and make sure no one lived once they were done.

The rest of Noble Team had a similar mindset, it hurt to see her stuff lying around everywhere but they all knew what she'd want, and they were going to do it.

…

"Stay safe you two." Kat said as she looked at Coco and Velvet, both of whom weren't coming with them, Velvets weapon was out of power and she would need time to restock, Coco was in the same boat but with bullets instead of photos.

"Make sure they pay, you hear me?" Coco said firmly as Velvet nodded in agreement.

"Count on it." Ilia said with a smile as she boarded the Pelican.

It sucked having to leave people behind but a squad of six would to the job well enough given the plan. So, it was with that that what was left of Noble Team, Ilia and Fin boarded the Pelican.

 _My brothers weren't on the ground fighting, most likely they are guarding the ship. If we encounter them…_

"You want to talk them down?" Carter asked nervously, looking at the Hunter.

 _I will give them a chance, one chance. If they won't listen._

Fin raised his plasma canon and let it glow slightly.

"Fair enough, Kat how close are we?" Carter asked, turning to Kat who was flying the Pelican (Carters past experience had put him off sitting in the cockpit)

"Nearly there." Kat responded. "Get ready for a landing in... _ARRGHH!_ "

"Kat!" Carter cried, wishing he was back in the cockpit he ran towards her.

"I'm fine." She said, almost sounding pissed of that she'd screamed. Looking up Carter could see the cockpit window had been shattered, thankfully it was above her and her amror had stopped anything from hitting her directly. "But hold on, whoever's shooting just got another hit on our engines."

"Everyone brace!" Cater yelled as the Pelican began a sudden downwards path to the Salem's crusades main deck (Which was still covered in rocky terrain from where it had been lying for thousands of years) skidding along as a shower of sparks erupted form the Pelican's belly as sharp rocks dug into it, eventually ripping it out and sending everyone in the back flying out, Ilia's Aura taking a battering as everyone else relied on their shields to remain unharmed.

"Fuck!" Emile cried as he staggered to his feet. "Who the hell shot us down?"

"Not sure, I just saw someone on the deck with a gun, it was too far away to see who they were." Kat explained as she pulled herself out of the shattered cockpit (Which currently rested with its nose buried in the ground and it's back where the rest of the Pelican used to be attacked before the terrain tore it off)

"Great." Carter muttered before looking around to make sure everyone else had survived the crash. "Everyone okay?"

A chorus of yes answered him, as well as another voice they'd hoped they'd be able to avoid hearing with the current plan.

"Why Demons! What a delight to see you again." Turak called, his tall body silhouetted on top of an outcrop of rock as he looked down at them. "Apologies about the landing but My Lady hates having people in her airspace, truly I am sorry."

Ilia felt her fists clench as she looked at the Elite, cracking jokes after what he'd done.

"Ilia don't." Emile hissed "We don't need to fight him, just…"

Turak moved suddenly, leaping into the air and crashing down in front of the ground; reaching his hands back and pulling two of his enhanced Energy swords off of his back (Emile was starting to suspect this Elite had more melee weapons then he did, which would be impressive if it was true)

"Just what? I'm sorry to tell you this but I'm afraid I can't let you pass, My lady has asked not to be disturbed, I'm sure you understand." Turak said, his cruel suedo grin on his face with his three mandibles as he advanced towards the Noble Team and its allies.

They weren't going to give him the pleasure of a response, instead they dived in to the fight. All of them had restocked their ammo and Jorge wasted no time proving this to the elite, firing on him as a torrent of bullets went his way.

Seemingly unphased the Elite charged towards the Spartan II before getting knocked off course by Emile and Carter ramming into him, knocking him to the ground as Emile unloaded a blast with Tusk. Turak's shields held as he rolled to the side and sprang to his feet before lunging forward with one of his swords, using the other to Block Kat's blade.

"Why are you even trying at this point?" Turak asked as he used his enormous strength to grab and throw Kat across the range, sending her crashing into the mountain range. "You can't beat me."

"No!" Carter yelled, grabbing him around the arm he'd used to throw Kat while Emile grabbed the other. "But we can slow you down!"

 _Fin go!_

The Hunter charged forwards, leaping into the air and bringing his shield down on Turak, sending the full weight and power of his shield directly down onto the Elite.

Only to have his metal shield shatter. Shards of metal flying off as Turak grinned, driving his head forwards and headbutting the Hunter in his chest. Dropping down he span around, kicking the legs out from below the Hunter with his titanic strength and forcing his palm forwards sending the Hunter flying back.

"Well that went well for you." Turak muttered, rolling his eyes and cracking his knuckles, grinning as he looked around. "Any other tricks up your sleeves or do you feel like giving up?"

Jorge responded by throwing a spike grenade at him, however the the barbs didn't work, failing to burrow into the Elites shields it detonated harmlesslessly and caused barley more than a ripple the shields surface.

"Was that it?" He asked, almost disappointed as he spoke. Demons were meant to be a challenge weren't they?

Sick of this fight he moved forward, determined to end this battle he ran towards Jorge, ignoring his bullets he grabbed the spartan around the head, bringing his body forwards and slamming into it's skull hard, actually breaking the shields and cracking the visor on Jorge's helmet and dazing the Spartan as he fell backwards.

Emile was next, he wasn't going to let Jorge die again, Six had been enough, he wasn't watching his team die again. So, he moved, stabbing a knife into the exposed Grimm arm. But once again his shields held; the Knife shattering with the force Emile put behind his stab. Turak span around, grabbing his with the Grimm arm and slamming him into a sharp bit of mountain so hard it ruptured out of his leg.

With him dealt with he ran towards Kat, readying a massive swing to take her out, she dived out of the way, avoiding her life being taken at the cost of her mechanical arm being completely severed. The feedback that shot through her body overloaded her as she fell backwards, clutching her arm in agony.

Carter fell last, running to Kat Turak lashed out, spinning around hitting his chest with his arm, sending him flying backwards into the wall.

Fin was the last to fall. Ilia wasn't a threat; the girl wasn't even wearing armor so what was the point in worrying about her? No, this Hunter needed to die, and they all needed to see this heretic die.

He ran at Fin and before the Hunter could blink sliced his sword up, with eh shield gone all he needed to do was sever the plasma canon arm, add that with him driving his Energy sword straight into the creatures guts and the fight was just too easy.

"Got nothing to say?" Turak asked as he twisted the blade, burning a bigger hole in his torso. "Come on man, you were always such a delight to talk to. Got anything more to add? Am I wrong now? Did you make the right decision now!?" He screamed as he drove the other sword into his gut as well.

 _I was distracted, and it's going to kill you._

"Is it really!?" Turak howled as he rose his leg up and kicked the creature free of his blades, sending him to the ground as he put a foot down on his chest, going out of his way to crush the Hunter under his foot. "Because I don't think it is! Nothing can beat me, I have the weapons of a god on my side! You abandoned them and fate has punished you dearly! So, tell me! What is going to kill me!"

 _Oh, come on? Where would the fun in that be?_

Ilia was panicking now, what could they do, there weapons didn't work and everyone else was out of the fight; that shield just held to tightly, nothing they had was on the same level and if they didn't do something soon Fin was going to die!

Then an idea came to the chameleon girl, a sudden burst of inspiration.

Heart hammering, she took off, running as fast as she could; this plan was crazy, but it had to work because if it didn't she had no idea what to do.

So, she ran, diving towards him as fast as she could, skidding along the ground she lashed out with her whip, the metal went out, not aimed towards Turak or his limbs, but towards stuff he kept on his back.

Time seamed to freeze as she watched her whip fly, begging it to find it's mark, to follow through and grab what she needed. Her heart stopped as she watched, only starting up again as the Whip caught what it was looking for.

The world rushed back to normal speed as she was flown forwards, the world too fast for her to process for a second before she caught up again, whipping around in mid air and crashing to the ground, skidding at least fifteen feet as she ignited what she'd taken.

Then she charged again, this time though he was looking and grinning cruelly as he looked at the small girl running at him, readying his sword over his head to strike her down, this foolish girl was going to pay…

Except she didn't because she got their first, her slim build and lack of excess weight allowing her to drive one of Turak's Orange energy swords through his chest…. And to the shock of everyone around them the blade actually went through.

Ilia had been right, his weapons were powerful, so strong that they'd had no difficulty rupturing his shields and bursting through his torso and going straight to his new shield generator.

Ilia grinned with triumph as she watched the shields finally flicked and fall, only to have the moment snatched away as a Grimm hand wrapped around her throat and lifted her into the air, the pain so immense she dropped the sword as she struggled to free her neck, desperately pulling on each of the cruel fingers.

"Congratulations." Turak said, a note of actual respect in his voice as he looked at her, ignoring the wound in his chest, it wasn't going to kill him for a while, he'd have time to finish the job. "That's the second time someone's actually hurt me. You have my respect. Unfortunately, I really can't afford to have you reach a third time so…"

Suddenly of missile fire suddenly rained down on the tow of them, distracting Turak just enough that his grip on Ilia slacked and she was able to get free, sprinting away from the explosions.

Looking up Turak was greeted by a heavy looking human mech suit. One he recognized despite the paint job change.

"Well this is interesting." He commented, looking at the suit as it stomped towards him. "You're not that suits owner, I know that much; that Demons dead. So who are you?"

The suit didn't respond, instead it charged, it's purple and orange paint gleaming as it ran towards him, its mini gun blasting at him. Turak wasn't helpless, he still had his original shield generator on him, but it was week compered to her gift and it quickly failed as the suit closed the gap, slashing with its energy sword as he felt his Grimm arm free from his body.

But the suit wasn't done, it reached forwards, grabbing the Elite around the face with its hands, grabbing a hold of his three mandibles and pulling, ripping the appendages of their owners face as it screamed in pain, only to feel more as the blade came back for a second attack, this time striking him across the face.

Blinded Turak was sent back as the suit kicked him in the guts, sending him crashing into the ground over the ridge of the cliffs. He wasn't out of the fight yet, if he could just find his way down she could fix him, she'd done it before. She would fix him, and he would repay her, he would end the one who used that suit, he would kill them! He would kill all of them! Then the gate would be open, and he would begin the Great journey at her side!

 _Crunch, crunch, crunch_

"Get back!" He cried out as the suits user clambered out and approached him, having jetted over from where the fight had been happening.

"You know Turak…"

He froze, he knew that voice!

"…You shouldn't feel too bad you lost."

"Get back! You're dead" He cried as his heart began to beat faster, his injury meaning it was pumping more blood out of him, but he didn't care, she could fix him, and he would kill this demon!

"Yeah, turns out I'm hard to kill Turak." The figure said, finally stopping and grabbing him around the head, forcing him to look up at the speaker even if he couldn't see them. "And you want to know why?"

"No, she can fix me, she can, I know it…" He babbled as he realised what was about to happen.

"I'm sure she could, the problem is I don't think you're going to last that long because you see, you missed something out in your plans, you made one critical mistake."

"And rwat was dat!" Turak yelled, his speaking mangled by his lack of mandibles, especially now he was yelling.

"It's very simple, we were told it every day, and I thought I'd seen evidence against that, but I was wrong. So, so wrong." The Speaker said as something began to build up in the background, a power that caused Turak to freeze up as it built higher and higher. "You see Turak, we Spartans, we've got a trick that makes us better than anyone else in the galaxy! And it's not something that comes from our armor, our training or our equipment."

Turak knew the Speaker was getting ready to kill him.

"You'll never get her demon, you may get me but I swear here and now that…"

"Spartans are unique because Spartans, **Spartans never die!** " Noble Six yelled as she let lose with her Spartan Laser, blasting the Elite's head with every once of power it had left, the head turning into a mist of alien blood as it burned through him, tearing a hole into the deck behind them.

Discarding the spent laser and looking at the somewhat comical sight of the Elite's back legs stuck in mid air before they fell over and down into the hole she'd burned funny finished her speech.

"We're just missing in action."


	101. Chapter 101

Chapter 101: What happened?

Ilia and Six then took a moment, looking at each other. Six grinned and took a step backwards, allowing Ilia to dismount from her perch on the wall and leap out the shattered window. Six grinned, taking a few steps backwards to make a running jump out to follow… except when it happened, the tower exploded, going up in a tower of orange fire and death.

But Six didn't die, it was a strange and vaguely familiar feeling, her Aura cracked and suddenly she was pulled, almost stretched across… well she wasn't sure, the storm of colours and swirls around her were incredible and it felt like she was being contorted and twisted in every way possible, but her body also felt like it was made of water so that didn't really bother her that much.

Then she was spat out of the other end, crashing down somewhere, she wasn't really sure where. She instantly knew it wasn't Remnant, but the place did look familiar to her even if she could place where exactly she was.

Looking around she saw a metal corridor, walking towards something on the wall that stood out to her, a green box with familiar markings on the front depicting bullets in a white stencilled design, that wasn't the bit that got to her though, walking closer she could read the text printed on it and it was exactly what she had suspected it of reading.

UNSC

Was, was she back in UNSC space? Was it possible? Looking around she couldn't see anyone else, but the design was defiantly human, looking around she recognised various construction methods and techniques and designs, but that all begged the question: How did she get here?

She was on Remnant, how did she get back here.

Was everything that happened there a dream? Raising her hand to her face found two pieces of evidence that suggested that wasn't the case. Namely her purple mass of hair and the facial scars left over from Cinders attack.

Okay, so that was all real, that still didn't explain how she got back to UNSC space… wait, the tower…

"Did I die again?" She asked to no one in particular. "For fucks sake how unlucky can a girl get in one life time to die twice!?"

When no one answer (Mostly because she was alone) she decided she had better things to do then stand around naked… wait…

Looking down Six realised to her shock that she was indeed naked.

 _Well this gives more proof to the 'I died' theory._

Sighing Six decided to locate some clothes, in a UNSC facility this might prove difficult but she had some idea where to look. Most of their bases where modular built basically out of the same components that could be shipped around the galaxy easily, what this meant was that if this place had a changing room it should be just down this corridor…

"Knew it." Six grinned as she pushed the door and walked in, praying she wasn't going to encounter a group changing session. Thankfully (From the perspective of her not having to explain what she was doing here, it wasn't like she objected to seeing half naked women) the place was empty, looking around Six could tell it wasn't currently being used because barley any of the lockers had names on them and most were unlocked.

After a quick bit of rummaging she was able to find an olive green T-shit with 'UNSC' stencilled across the front and a pair of cargo trousers that just about held in place. Feeling she'd gotten the best luck she could have expected she left the room, trying to find the way out of this base.

Thankfully it didn't take her long as soon she was able to activate the door controls to an empty hanger and step out onto the planets surface. The single door alerting her to the fact this planets air was breathable and smiling wide she stepped out and looked around.

The planet was fairly Earth like, in fact it looked basically identical… was it Earth?

Seeing a settlement in the distance Six began the walk towards it, figuring she had nowhere better to go for now.

She didn't plan to stay, not at all. She was getting back to Remnant, she admittedly wasn't sure how she was going to make it but that didn't matter; she would jump back if she had to.

Sighing she approached a UNSC outpost, figuring she could claim to be a refuge and just a bit out of the loop, it wasn't like she couldn't pull the look off well; given the numerous injury's she was sporting.

When she got close to the outpost someone called to her:

"Stay where you are!" A voice called in a Slavic accent, a very familiar voice with a Slavic accent.

 _No, it, it couldn't be, the chances are just too…_

But apparently fate didn't care about how hugely improbably the situation was, because walking down from the tower was Jun, still in his Mjolnir and Approaching Six who froze up as she looked at him.

"You okay there miss?" He asked as he got nearer a definite happy note to his voice.

"I, I… yeah…" Six began, her brain still struggling to process what was going on in front of her, surviving this long was impressive for a Spartan 3, but being so at ease, so happy… what was wrong? And why was he the only one at this outpost? There should have been more people here!

"If you don't mind me saying, you don't look it." He commented, looking down at Six, who had to confess that he had a point.

"I got unlucky." Six said simply, moving to hide her face with the fringe, not because she was actually bothered by it, but because you would expect someone to be bothered by it and she didn't want to draw too much attention to herself if she could help it.

"Yeah no kidding." Jun commented as he looked down at her, noting the scars on her arms. "You get caught up in the middle of a firefight of some kind?"

"Yeah." Six nodded, technically it was true.

"And did you steal the shirt of someone?" Jun asked, looking down at the shirt Six had 'borrowed'

"I got it up from there." Six admitted, pointing towards the base. "I thought it was abandoned given how empty it was."

"Well it's not." Jun explained, putting his helmet off to look at her. Seeing his face again was not something Six needed in her life, even if it was nice to see he didn't look angry. "They're just off celebrating at the moment."

"Wait the whole base is celebrating?" Six asked, pretty sure no matter what the occasion was you didn't just abandon an entire base.

"Well yeah, obviously, I agreed to stay back here so they could go off and join the party." Jun said with a smile. "They earned it."

"What do you mean? What party?" Six asked, her brain hurting from all this information, they were at war weren't they? You couldn't just stop a war and go have a fucking party! What if they were attacked!? It made no sense!

"Erm, the Party, obviously." Jun said, looking at Six with a confused look on his face. Slightly annoyed Six looked up at him.

"That's not an answer." Six pointed out.

"Girl, how long have you been out of the loop?" He asked, sure this girl had suffered some major trauma, or had simply been wandering for far to long; then again how did you miss the battle that had just happened? They weren't exactly subtle about there attack and it had only ended a day or two ago, how could she have missed all of this?

"A while." Six responded. "And I have a name you know."

 _Stupid! Why are you saying that to him! The fuck are you going to call yourself!_

 _Erm… Six… wait._

 _Yeah, good going dumbass!_

 _Hey I'll have you know!_

"Nope, you never gave it, I'm Jun, your name is?" Jun asked, looking atr Six expectantly, who's brain suddenly started wiring:

 _Crap in a bucket! Think up a fake name think up a fake name!_

"Erm…"

 _Smooth._

"… I'm Bethany!" Six declared with a goofy grin and praying the name fooled him… actually it did sound kinda familiar…

"Well good to meet you Bethany, to actually answer your question; the Party celebrating the end of the Human Covenant war."

Six only had one response to this information:

"What the fuck!"

…

A few minutes latter sat down at a table with a ration pack in front of her (as crap as it may taste Six was happy to have something to eat again, the popcorn in the stadium felt like a long time ago now) and Six was still in shock.

"He, he actually did it?" She asked, still amazed at the news that had been given to her.

John 117, the Master Chief had apparently ended the war, killing the Prophets, forging an ally with the Elites and destroying one last Forerunner Superweapon (Six was shocked to learn there was more than one)

"Yup, mad bastard gave his all to save us." Jun explained as he tore into the ration pack, still speaking even through the mouthful of food. "Frankly I was a bit in shock when I heard the war was over."

"You're not the only one." Six explained, weakly grinning as she tore into the weird grey paste… stuff. In all honesty she wasn't sure what exactly it was but she didn't care, it was something to eat and that was enough.

"Yeah…" Jun said, staring wistfully into the distance as he looked around. "…Man I wish they'd made it."

"Huh?" Six asked, shocked as he looked at him.

"Oh right! Sorry, I was just thinking about my old Team, I wish they'd made it." Jun admitted.

"But, what do you mean?" Six asked, knowing what he meant, she'd felt the same when she arrived on Remnant before she found out most of Noble Team had made it, but a part of her wanted to know what he was going to say.

"My Squad… We got unlucky." He explained sadly, his face droping slightly as he looked down. "About Six months back we were on Reach, you know what happened to Reach right?"

"Yeah, a little bit." Six said, resisting the urge to break into a massive smile given she knew the planets fate better than he did.

"Yeah well, I was on it during its last days, we had a lot to do to try and save it… we didn't all make it… or save the planet. I only learnt a few months ago that what we did even mattered." Jun explained. "Then again, I can't complain; at least it did make a difference."

"What do you mean!?" Six asked, perhaps a bit to eagerly; but she had to know if… if it had all mattered.

"Our last mission, we had to deliver an AI to Chief, well we were meant to take to the ship but it was for him to use… I… I never knew if they made it." Jun admitted, a part of him wondering why he was talking about all of this to one random girl, then again given her half-starved look and general unkemptness it wasn't like anyone was going to believe her. But, again, this wasn't right… he trusted this girl… why did he trust her?

"Sorry to hear that." Six admitted, wishing she'd gotten off the planet, maybe she could have told him…

"It doesn't matter, I'm lucky I found out at all." Jun admitted. "They're actually getting a monument when they rebuild the planet."

"Wait what?" Six blurted, shocked this was going to happen, Spartans didn't normally get those.

"When you're indirectly responsible for saving the human race it's kind of an expected thing." Jun admitted.

"I, I…" Six began, not sure what to say, her team was going to be remembered, this, this was…

"I was surprised too." Jun admitted. "Not going to complain about some recognition though, those guys deserve it."

"Yeah… yeah they do…" Six muttered, looking at Jun and wanting to say something, anything, but what could she…

"Six, Six is that you?" A voice suddenly asked, jolting up Six looked around, no one else was in the room except her and Jun.

"Yeah, Its me." Six muttered quietly, not sure she could be talking to the voice, but something about the accent was familiar…

"Listen, do you want to come back?" the Voice asked, it's British nature becoming apparent as it spoke.

"To Remnant?" She responded, trying to ignore the odd look Jun was giving her, whatever he probably just thought she was mad, he probably had a point.

"Yes, do you wish to return?"

"Yes!" Six practically yelled, causing Jun to start.

"Bethany are you okay?" He asked nervously as she looked at him.

"Then get ready, I'm bringing you back, give me a few seconds to get ready." The voice said as the world started to distort around her.

Running out of time Six ran to Jun and pulled the Spartan into a tight hug.

"Whoa! Whats wrong, Beth are you…?" He asked, seeing Six was crying.

"I'm sorry I didn't make it, I'm sorry I couldn't help them!" Six cried as she felt her body get lighter, letting go she stepped back, looking at him sadly and adding: "I'm sorry we left you behind."

"What are you…?" He began to ask before the purple haired girl in front of him vanished her body stretching towards the sky as she disappeared in a burst of orange light.

He looked at the space in front of him, what had just…

Thankfully he got pulled away from trying to work out that headache as his tablet went off, walking towards it he saw it was a message about the Noble Team monument. Grateful to have something else to think about he looked over the message which ended with the names and numbers of Noble team…

Noble 1 Commander Carter-A259

Noble 2 Lieutenant Commander Catherine-B320

Noble 3 Warrant Officer Jun-A266

Noble 4 Warrant Officer Emile-A239

Noble 5 Chief Warrant Officer Jorge-05

Noble 6 Lieutenant Bethany-B312

Jun looked up in shock, that girl… she could have been, but that hair… it was her colour, and the eyes, the same Orange she used as an accent… it couldn't be, could it?

"Six…?" He asked to the empty space where the girl used to stand, not sure who or what he'd seen.


	102. Chapter 102

Chapter 102: What happened part 2

Once again Six felt like she was being stretched, her body wrenching from Earth back to Remnant, she tried to look around as she was pulled back but she wasn't sure she even had working eyes at this point, all she saw was a swirling mass.

The second she felt solid again the first thing she picked up on was heat, sweltering Six forced herself up to her bare feet; immediately regretting this decision as the metal on the floor sent a surge of heat through her body.

"Oh thank god you made it!" A voice suddenly called, only just getting used to seeing again it took Six a second to see who was speaking, a floating metal sphere she instantly recognised.

"498? I, you pulled me back?" Six asked incredulously as the monitor nodded.

"Yes, look we can have this talk later." 498 said, rotating his body so he could look behind him. "We really don't have much time before this whole place melts."

"Melts!" Six cried in shock, looking around Six saw the Ostium rings behind her, and all of them were red hot and the farthest away one was definitely starting to droop.

"Yes, this place has been abused something silly over the last few months, this thing is meant to have years to cool down not weeks." 498 explained. "It's meant to break through to different dimensions, it uses a lot of power."

"But why is this whole place going to melt?" Six asked, looking over at the rings.

"Follow me and I'll explain." 498 said. "And quickly, please; you do not want to be in this place when it melts."

Nodding Six set off after him down one of the many corridors, looking up at the ceiling Six noted some of the pipes running along the top were also red hot.

"The Rings are the functional component, but this whole facility is important to making it work, we had to take it apart into sections and bring it back down here… back then…" 498 muttered, looking as awkward as a floating metal ball could.

"Okay, but I thought you were meant to preserve this place." Six asked. "You must have known bringing me back would damage it, so why'd…"

"Why did I bring you back?" 498 asked, looking at Six sadly (his eye dimmed slightly) as the girl nodded. "Well… at first I didn't."

Upon Six's completely lost expression 498 elaborated:

"When Seven brought you over she broke all sorts of rules, we weren't meant to ever use them again unless this universe fell to a similar fate as out old one did. However, home is home and the Forerunners wanted to go back if it was ever possible; so they kept an eye out back home, they wanted to see what became of the universe without them and there reclaimers."

"So how…" Six began before 498 spoke again:

"Did I sound like I was finished?" He asked, glaring at Six before he continued. "Anyway, the Forerunners ran away from something called the Flood, it's a long story I won't bore you but basically, it's a hive mind parasite, intelligent and dangerous and it was destroying the galaxy. They had a way of containing it, but they wanted to make sure that if another outbreak happened they might be able to save some of the life that was created, so we had an emergency procedure to bring unique creatures over if they were in danger of being wiped out."

"But, there were billions of humans… and we weren't being killed by a flood." Six pointed out, causing 498 to roll his eye (And by proxy his entire body) and look at her flatly.

"Not a flood you cretin, the Flood. anyway, Seven is a master of loop holes." He explained. "You see she used the argument that you and your squad were rare examples of a sub set of humans who's numbers were vastly reduced and in danger of being lost forever."

It took Six a few seconds to process what he'd said but eventually she put it together: "She saved us because we were Spartans?"

498 nodded.

"Yes, Jorge especially she noted. His kind only ever numbered in the thirty's at their peek, she said it was our duty to protect such a unique specimen. I should have known she had ulterior motives, that girl never uses the correct terminology unless she wanted something from me. Anyway once she was done with him she elected to follow you and see what happened to your squad, saving each of you as you died…"

"Hang on." Six butted in, something not making sense in her brain. "How did she get away with saving us? I mean I'm not complaining but there was far more Spartan three's than thirty."

"Yes, numbers for your kind were roughly twelve hundred. However Six, how many humans are there where your from?"

"I don't know." Six shrugged. "Something in the Billions… Oh."

"Quite. Anyway to get back on track with what I was trying to explain, Seven saved you and brought you over, however, the protocol had a secondary function and that was to return the subject to their original dimension if this universe proved fatal to them." 498 explained, happy to finally get to the point. "You were put in a situation that would have killed you and the Ring's programming kicked in to send you somewhere you'd feel safe."

"It sent me to Jun…" Six muttered as the coincidence suddenly made sense to her.

"Yes, however… I have a secondary function much like this facility." 498 said, his voice suddenly going quite. "I have to help the reclaimers and…"

"You knew I'd want to come back?" Six asked, looking at the sphere who nodded.

"Yes, I… I knew you'd want to return." 498 muttered. "I still was supposed to protect the facility as my top priority and you would have been fine on that planet you were sent to… My orders told me to leave you behind."

"But you didn't?" Six asked, slightly confused even if she was grateful, 498 had never come across as the kind of person who'd do something like that.

"Yes…"

"Erm… Not that I'm complaining…" Six began, looking at the Monitor and smiling weakly. "…But, why did you do that for me?"

"Because Seven, Seven taught me better… She's always been more advanced than me, she thought more about facts and ideas, she let herself grow and… in the end she left, realising the Forerunners would never come and we would be better off helping you and your kind… and I sat here for the sake of orders that didn't even mean anything anymore." 498 eventually said. "I was built for two things, One of them didn't matter anymore and the other I was actively choosing to not do… I… who was I… what was I doing…"

"Well, you saved me when it mattered." Six grinned. "So I consider that a plus, by the way where are we going?" She asked, looking around and noticing they just appeared to be in another corridor with no clear destination in mind.

"If you want to get back in time to save everyone you're going to need a ride, and I recently found something you might find a little bit useful; it's heavily armed and extremely fast." He explained as they approached a large door, which slowly slid open and revealed what was clearly a hanger bay, with a banshee propped in one corner.

That however was not what Six was looking at. She was looking at something in the center of the room, a large, long something in the vauge shape of a Triangle.

"498?" Six asked, looking at the thing in front of her.

"Yes?" He responded, looking at her and wondering why her grin had gotten so big.

"Is that a GA-TL1 Longsword-class Interceptor?" Six asked, her face actually hurting from how large her grin was.

"I believe so…" 498 muttered. "…I'm not familiar with the ship precisely, however I have ran tests and as far as I can tell everything is working."

"498 you have made me the happiest girl in the world." Six said simply as she ran towards the Longsword. "I have always wanted to fly one of these!"

Six belted towards the ship, pulling the hatch control as the ramp descended, she stood on it, then noticed something.

"Well are you coming or not?" Six asked, looking to the Monitor who was still floating near the door to the hanger.

"I…" 498 muttered, floating awkwardly as he looked at her.

"Listen, you said you wanted to help me right?" Six asked, 498 nodded in response. "Then get up here and help me, I need a navigator."

498 sat there for a second before her moved forwards.

"Very well, lets go." He said as her entered the ship. He stopped just behind the pilots seat as Six strapped herself in. "Erm… I just want to check, you do know how to fly one of these right?"

Six snorted as she began the start-up series, flicking various switched and pulling the main start up leaver. "I'm a Spartan, I can fly anything."

…

"Holy shit this is fast!" Six yelled as she pushed the Longswords thrusters to their limit, letting them open and urging the ship on as the sea tore away below it.

"You think!" 498 screamed, magnetized to the floor to stop himself from being flung backwards into the wall. "You're drifting off course badly! Angle left twenty degrees and keep going forwards."

"Got it." Six responded as she moved the ship, noticing something of in the distance. "I can see Vale in the distance! What's my ETA?"

"One minute." 498 called back from the floor.

"Any chance we can speed it up!?" Six yelled as she looked at the controls in front of her, the air speed refusing to climb higher than it currently was (Granted it was breaking the sound barrier currently but that wasn't fast enough when you could see what Six could)

"Maybe… you'd need to shed some weight and I'd need to abandon a lot of safety protocols, why though?" He asked from his spot on the floor.

"Come have a look." Six muttered as the Longsword approached the city.

"I… I'll get to work on the engines!" 498 cried as he saw the Dragon, pulling its damaged head up as it got ready to go on another rampage.

"I'll shed some weight!" Six yelled as she pulled up from the sea and got closer to the Grimm Dragon, deciding it needed the ammo on board far more than she did. So she unloaded the every single weapon she had on board.

The Rotary guns sending a barrage towards the dragon before she unloaded the Ventral guns. Next went the missiles, all of them with the exception of the nuclear ones… Mostly because she didn't feel like turning her home into an irradiated hellscape.

The shots hurt the Dragon, the shells wrecking the skull plate and the missiles taking advantage of the cracks and shattered everything, a huge chunk flying off and crashing to the ground.

Unfortunately, the Dragon was still alive, everything had been unloaded and while it was defiantly lagging behind the Bullhead Six could now see it was chasing.

 _This isn't working, we need to kill this, we need a bigger weapon…_

Then it came to her in a beautiful spark of inspiration, grinning madly she whirled around in her seat and called: "498 lower the ramp!"

"What!" He called as he floated back, looking at Six like she was crazy. "Why!?"

"We need to bale out quick!" Six responded as she brought the ship around in a large arc and aimed it right at the Dragons head.

"You're insane!" He yelled back, still opening the ramp anyway as Six pulled herself out of her seat, sprinting down the ships corridor Six grabbed the AI from the air and dived out of the back of the ship, grabbing the sphere as she plummeted towards the ground, desperately hoping the sphere could at least slow her down enough that she'd at least survive the fall.

Six cried out in pain as she slammed into the ground, her legs in tact even if they did hurt like crazy.

"Argh! Fuck!" She swore as she staggered up, leaning against a destroyed building as she tried to take the weight of her legs.

"This might be a bad time to mention this." 498 said dully as he looked at the injured Spartan. "But I can levitate things, if you'd told me your crazy idea I could have levitated you to the ground safely."

"See that?" Six asked, pointing up at the Dragons now headless body as it fell to the ground, dissolving as it hit the ground painfully. "The Dragon is dead, the plan worked."

"Great, and now we don't have a ship; so, tell me: How do you expect to get up there?" 498 asked, jolting his body towards the Salem's crusade.

"Well you just said you can float things, get me up to Beacon and I've got a suit of power armor, that fly's." Six grinned as she set off towards Beacons cliff, only to stop after a few steps when she spotted something laying in the road under a large slab of concrete that looked like it had belonged to the office tower across the street. Specifically, she saw a pair of legs wearing black trousers with a green stripe down one side.

"Penny…" Six muttered as she sprinted towards the chunk of debris, struggling to lift the chunk off the girl.

"Move over." 498 muttered as he floated into place and grabbed the chunk in a white energy field before throwing it away to reveal…

"I'm no expert but is something meant to be attached to those?" 498 asked, looking at the legs and waist of Penny… with the rest of her nowhere to be seen.

"Yes…" Six muttered, desperately looking around; she really didn't need to see another friend die and the girl was a robot… "…Penny! Where are you! It's me, Six!" She yelled, looking around and praying she'd see something.

 _Please respond, come on girl… where are you! Please, come on!_

"Six?" Her bubbly voice answered, coming from deeper in the pile 498 floated towards it and threw the debris away, revealing the rest of the of the android girl.

To say she didn't look in the best of health was… an understatement to put it lightly. Everything from her waist on up had been torn off, a series of wires and tubes hanging from the torn segment of her body. Her arms were also not in a good state, with most of her artificial skin ripped off, exposing the hydraulics and wires underneath. However, the worst part was her face, half of it was missing, her green eye staring out from her mechanical skull.

"Penny!" Six gasped, looking at the girl as her face broke into a smile. "You okay?"

"I believe I've been better, however I'm still functioning so that is something." She said with a smile as she pushed herself up with her hands. Her severed torso looking up her.

"Oh, thank god, look Penny; what happened? I've seen you fight, how did…"

Penny pointed to the building behind her. "That building exploded and sent several large chunks of glass my way and it severed me, then I got crushed by the debris and now…"

"I get it, really bad luck. Listen I've got to help my team, 498 can you float her and me up there?" Six asked, pointing towards Beacon.

"Yes, easily." 498 said. "I can move much more than one automation and one human."

"Good." Six said. "Get us to Beacon, I need to get going as fast as possible."

…

Floating was not sun, it was slow and boring for the most part.

"Can you hurry up?" Six snapped angrily as he looked at the sphere next to her.

"No, this is as fast as I can move." 498 responded simply.

"You do know the longer they're numbers are fewer the greater a chance they're going to get hurt right?" Six pointed out, to which 498 responded:

"Six, you've died twice; they have only died once each. If anything you're the one in the most danger."

"Besides, they might not even have set off yet…" Penny began before the sound of a Pelicans engines kicked in, looking up Six saw the craft flying away from the school.

"You were saying?" Six asked bitterly as she watched them go. She was so close…

"Look you can catch up." 498 pointed out as they reached the top of the cliff and he deposited Six on one of Beacons landing strips. "Go get into your suit, I'll hide Penny in your room until then, we can contact the General once this mess is all sorted."

"Wait!" Penny cried, looking around at Six as best as she could given half her body was missing. "I want to go with you!"

Six couldn't help but look down at the severed android girl and point out: "Erm… Penny I'm flattered but…"

"Your suit." She butted in, digging her fingers into some of the damaged skin on the back of her head and pulling. This act cause Six to flinch, Penny may be a robot but she was bloody convincing and no one pulling their own skin off ever looks good. Still it made sense when Six saw what she was showing her.

"Is that a Forerunner AI chip?" 498 asked, legitimately confused as he saw the green pulsating chip eject out of the girls head.

"It's based of something my Father was called into investigate at an archaeological dig." Penny explained. "He was already trying to figure out a way of making me and this finished the puzzle."

"Wait, if it's like the one Sevens on…" Six muttered, suddenly realising something. "…Does that mean I could plug you into the suit!?"

"I think so." She said happily as Six pulled the now freed chip out.

"Well then Penny, how do you like the idea of being a mechanical war machine of death?" Six asked with a silly grin.

"I thought I already was." Penny pointed out.

"Well now you get rocket launchers, come on!" Six grinned as she sprinted towards the vehicle bay, taking several short cuts that wouldn't have been possible before the attack. Six wasn't exactly sure what had happened up here, but she had to assume something had been up here and caused some damage otherwise she wouldn't have been able to take a short cut through the weapons lab.

Still as much as of a surprise it was that this route was open to her it was nothing compared to who she ran head long into as she burst out the other side of the building.

"Gah!" Six gasped as she collided with the two she'd hit, she was a tad surprised when she realised who it was.

"Sorry, are you okay… Six!" Coco gasped a she looked down at the purple haired girl.

"Yup!" Six declared brightly as she jumped to her feat. "That's me."

"I, I don't believe it! We thought you were dead!" Velvet cried as she looked at Six in shock.

"Eh, I got better, now I've got to go help the Team, guessing they took off towards that ship?" Six asked, when the two nodded Six went to set off again before noticing something Velvet was carrying.

"is that Mjolnir?" Six asked, noting her hammer in the rabbit girls hands.

"Wha, yes, sorry I just…" Velvet muttered, not quite sure what to say.

"I'm not complaining." Six shrugged as she reclaimed her weapon. "Now, I've gotta go." She said as she began to run off again before Coco called:

"You're coming back right!"

Six stopped, turned around and grinned at her:

"Come on Coco, it's me, have I let you down yet?" she called before she sprinted off, she had friends to help and a world to save and she couldn't start that without her mech suit.

…

 **Authors notes: To the guest who keeps asking who killed the dragon I hope this clears it up: Velvet knocked it out and Six finished it off.**


	103. Chapter 103

Chapter 103: I now declare us even

Six stood on the deck of Salem's Crusade, looking down at the now headless body of Turak; it did her good too know that particular Elite was dead properly this time.

It was then that Six heard the crunch of people climbing over the cliff behind her. She turned around, knowing who it was and grinning as the Noble Team helmets came into view.

"Hey!" She called, waving to them as they looked down at her; briefly frozen.

It was Ilia who moved first out of the group, pulling herself over the cliff and carefully sliding down the rocky terrain and walking towards the purple haired girl.

Smiling Six walked towards herm her arms out wanting a hug… before Ilia suddenly covered the distance between them in less then a second and smashed her hand across Six's face.

"Argh!" Six cried as she fell to the ground, rubbing her sore face as she looked up at her girlfriend, lost of words as she clenched her fists as she looked down at Six. "Ilia what the…"

As fast as she had slapped her Ilia had pulled Six to her feet and pulled her into an almost bone crushing hug.

"Six…" The Chameleon girl muttered, hugging her tighter as Six returned the gesture. "…I thought you were gone."

Six smiled as she let go of Ilia.

"Eh, I've been killed twice now; haven't died yet."

"Just, please don't make this a regular thing, I'm not sure I can handle it." Ilia smiled weakly as she looked at her girlfriend, so happy to see her scared wreck of her face.

"Trust me I don't intended to make this a regular thing." Six said as Noble team jumped down to join the two girls. "Hey guys!" She called happily as she looked at the group slowly walk towards her.

"Six… We…"

"Thought I was dead?" Six asked, looking at them flatly. "Let's be honest for a second, does that mean anything for us at this point?"

"Six we saw you get incinerated in a massive explosion!" Emile cried. "I think we have a right to be shocked by that!"

"Oh yeah right, good point Mr Stabbed through the fucking chest? How about Miss headshot over there? Or Captain pelican crash and erm… who was the last one again? Oh yeah: Died in a massive explosion on a fucking space ship! If you lot can live through that I can live through one building going up in flames." Six muttered as she looked over the others.

"Six we thought you were dead!" Kat cried. "I mean… I… We…"

Six then interrupted Kat's mad rambling by pulling the other Spartan into a hug (This was a bit of a challenge given Kat still had her semblance activated and was a good two feet taller than Six currently was)

"I'm sorry…" Six muttered, eventually backing off and smiling at Kat. "…But now we're even."

"Even!" Emile yelled, slightly confused by Six's actions.

"I saw all of you die." Six pointed out. "Now you have seen me dead. Ergo; Even." Six explained.

The rest of Noble Team looked at Six before running towards her and pulling her into a hug. The problem is with all three of the fully armored and powered up Spartans Six was reminded she was distinctly squishy.

"Too tight! Too tight!" Six cried before they let her go, staggering over Six breathed in deeply. "Fuck I forgot how strong we got."

"Hey, I want a hug!" Seven called as her miniature hologram projected out of Carters helmet and looked up at Six, who given she was far to big for the AI to hug, simply offered out her middle and index finger on her right hand, and Seven hugged that.

"Well this is weird." Six muttered, looking at the AI before asking: "So, Erm, what happened to the hard light full sized you?"

"Oh, I left that back on the Pride." Seven explained simply as she let go of Six's fingers. "Now, what happened? How did you get back here! You didn't have a way out of the tower from what I've heard."

"498 took me on a trip." Six explained. "Brief stop off at Earth then back here. Fun trip that by the way, I got to meet Jun again and it turns out we won the war. Now, please tell me you have a plan to deal with this ship!"

"We have got a plan." Carter said, while every part of him may be screaming to ask Six to confirm what she'd just said they could talk later once this ship was out of the air. "We need to get to the bridge of this ship, we put Seven inside and she can set the ship to fly off and explode in open space."

"That is my kind of plan!" Six grinned. "Let's go do it!"

"Okay, you want to get back in the suit and get moving?" Carter asked. "We need to find a way inside the ship, all the outer hatches are covered by all this built up rock."

"Two things: One: that suits currently in use so no. And two: We could try the hole in the floor." Six explained, pointing towards the hole her Spartan Laser (Talk about a lucky find to have stored in the back of the Longsword) had bored in the ground.

"What do you mean the suits in use?" Kat asked, looking at the purple mecha in confusion; specifically, its open chest and distinct lack of human occupants.

"Salutations!" Penny called, waving her hand in greeting. A movement which tended to look cuter when she had her normal body, as opposed to the massive several ton war machine she was currently using.

"I, How did you…" Emile began to asked.

"AI chipped her, it's not that hard." Six explained as she walked towards the hole.

"Wait!" Jorge called, grabbing her shoulder before she could jump down.

"What?" Six asked, looking at him curiously.

"Why are you naked!?" He asked/yelled confusedly.

"Because the Ostium Rings don't do inorganic material with organic material." Seven explained dully.

"But, you went to Beacon to get the suit… you must have had a chance to get some…" Ilia said, before adding quietly: "…Not that I'm complaining…"

"I was more interested in getting here fast to come help." Six explained flatly. "Forgive me if modesty slipped my mind..."

"Great, we're going to confront a tyrant and destroy a star ship… and our best fighter is naked. Great, just great." Emile muttered, rolling his eyes as Six dropped into the hall. Wondering exactly how they all got to this point as he followed.

…

 **Authors notes: Sorry for the shot one, long story short real life crap happened and I'm tired so this chapter ended up shorter, should be better Tuesday.**


	104. Chapter 104

Chapter 104: Well this went about as well as I expected

Emerald had been watching Noble team since they landed on the deck of Salem's Crusade. She had to admit she wasn't sure how to feel over the fact they'd killed Turak, practically because she really wished they would be dead by this point… but on the other hand she really never did like the guy… like, at all.

"A shame." Salem commented, standing behind Emerald as she watched Six reunite with her team (Confirming to Emerald at least that Turak was truly useless) "Turak was a useful general. Oh well. Emerald I need you to do something for me."

"What is it?" Emerald asked, hoping it would involve killing the team who killed Cinder.

"I need you to separate Noble Six from the rest of her team." Salem explained. "I know you wanted to kill her yourself, but they will be easier to kill in smaller numbers and believe me, this fate will be good enough for her."

"What is it?" Emerald asked confused as Salem Turned around to look at the main forcefield/window in front of her as a Griffon crashed down at the top, a pile of scratched metal clutched in its claws.

"I sent a flock to get this." Salem explained, walking towards the injured Grimm, it's damaged eye's staring blankly up at her as she approached. Crouching down she rubbed its beak as the creature let out noises that seamed… piteous. From a Grimm. "You were strong to make it back." She said as she let go and looked at what was in it's claws.

The Grimm looked up at her and let out a noise, a strangled gargling. Looking at its neck Salem saw the many holes that had been punched into it.

"You can't go on?" She asked as the Grimm nodded. "Well you did what I asked, I can grant you this. Emerald could you assist this creature?"

Barely looking up from her screens Emerald retrieved one of her new guns from her holsters and blasted the Grimm, it's body dissolving around them.

"I thought you said it was strong." Emerald commented as she holstered her gun, looking at the pile of black ash that used to be a Griffon.

"There are two things that make someone strong: The ability to win a fight and being able to keep going no matter what's thrown at you. Grimm normally embody these traits perfectly, this one didn't so why would I want to keep it around?" Salem explained as she looked over at the Griffons prize. "Besides, it did what I asked, I guarantee the next Grimm I send out wont fail like that one."

"What do you mean?" Emerald asked before she recognised what the pile of scratched metal actually was. "Is that!"

"Yes, it is." Salem confirmed. "Now we just need one last piece for the plan to begin."

Salem then took a step back and raised her hands, blinking her eyes came back glowing as she began to speak. The words sent shivers down Emeralds back and she didn't even understand what Salem was saying, it sounded like a string of animalistic growling; The domineering tone only aided by the calmness in which it was said.

Then it entered the room. A figure that looked vaguely human approached the two of them; well vaguely the upper half of a human. The creature floated with a black cape less tatter hanging down from its lower half, like a doll torn in half by an angry child. A single yellow eye glowing out of it's bone mask as it raised its skeletal hands, moving towards the pile of metal the Griffon had brought.

"You know what to do?" Salem asked. The Geist nodded as it moved forward, merging with the pile and pulling it's self up to look at the two of them.

"Good." Salem nodded before turning to Emerald. "Split her up."

Emerald nodded and moved to her screens, playing with them until she could see where the team was. Now… how to split her up.

The opportunity came a few minutes later as the group walked into a certain room. Smiling Emerald tapped the spots all of them were standing on and grinned as the game began.

…

The room Noble Team had just entered was massive and was clearly intended for training in. This was proven by the training weapons mounted on the walls, rings clearly meant for fighting in spaced a few feet away from each other. Also that Seven told them that's what it was for.

"A training deck, dammit this is way bigger than the one my ship has." Seven muttered darkly as she looked at everything in the room.

"We're trying to find the bridge, not have a pissing contest over who has the best shit." Six pointed out as she walked towards the door at the other end of the training hall. Watching it slide open before striding through… Only to have the door slam down on her and several bits of floating mechanism moving into place pointed Six to the idea it was probably locked.

"Six!" Came Ilia's muffled cry from behind the door.

"It's fine." Six pointed out, trying to convince herself and Ilia with that statement. "Seven can you get me out?"

"Let me see…" Seven said, her voice dripping with smug confidence as she approached the door, grinning as she cracked her fingers, giving her shoulders a little roll before she stuck her hand into the control panel… and realised something that caused the smugness to melt faster than an ice cream in the desert. "… Crafty bitch."

"What's wrong!?" Six gasped, looking around desperately as Seven explained.

"Whoever has control of this ship is smart. They just overloaded the panel, so I can't crack it from here." Seven explained. "And the doors are on there own closed system specifically, so that you can do stuff like this."

"So what does that mean for me?" Six asked, biting her lip as she looked up and down the corridor she was now stuck in (unable to miss the fact it was getting steadily dimmer)

"It means we need to get to the bridge to get you out." Seven explained. "Everything can be controlled form there; For now try and stay alive. Whoever did this was probably watching over the Security cameras and if they were then they probably wanted you specifically. We'll find another way around to get you out."

"Why don't we just blast it?" Penny asked.

"Because that's the blast door, it's designed to hold off Forerunner explosives, and trust me; your most advanced super special tech isn't enough to get through those doors, if we want to get her out we need to unlock the door from the bridge." Seven explained. "Trust me I'd rather we just blow it up."

"Okay." Six nodded. "Get going then, the less time I'm trapped in here the less time I have to spend avoiding whatever trap I'm currently stuck in."

"Six…" Ilia began to say. Six couldn't see her but she still leant against the door where she thought Ilia was anyway.

"I said I wasn't going to die again. Trust me I'll make it through this…" Six said, smiling, hoping the warmth spread to her voice given Ilia couldn't see her face.

"That's a nice thought."

Six whirled around as the corridor lighting suddenly cut out completely, leaving her in pitch darkness.

"Who was that!?" Ilia cried through the door.

"Ilia get the bridge." Six yelled as she heard heavy metal footsteps approach her.

"Six what's going on!?" Ilia screamed.

"Guys get to the bridge!" Six yelled. "I can handle this, just go now!"

"Six, wait! No! Let me go!" Ilia yelled as she was dragged of by Jorge and Emile. "Six! Please Six!"

"Sorry Ilia…" Six muttered, wishing something would light up, anything to help her see.

"Compassionate to the end." The voice commented, a cruel female voice Six hadn't heard before, given where she was…

"Salem, I presume?" Six asked as the metallic thumping got closer.

"Correct."

…

"Let me go!" Ilia yelled before Emile spoke.

"Ilia we need to get to the bridge, she's right; we get there we can get her out, standing around here crying really isn't helping." Emile said before Jorge turned to her and added:

"Look, I've got my Wife and Child down on the surface, I want to protect them directly, but I can do them more good getting on with my job rather than standing around, so come on Ilia; lets save her." Jorge explained. Ilia sat in thought for a second, eventually saying:

"If she dies again before we get to her I swear I'm going to kill her." Ilia muttered, rolling her eyes and following Seven as she guided the rest of the group.

…

"Sorry I couldn't be there in person; but my champion should be there soon." Salem explained, almost sounding cheerful as she spoke. "I must say in a few months you've done more damage to my operations that Ozpin ever managed to, and that man had thousands of years to work with."

Deciding to ignore this detail about her headmaster Six simply elected to try and get the hell out of this corridor. Moving carefully, she hugged the wall, her back pressed against the cold metal as she carefully took steps along, trying to find… well anything other than a dark hallway.

"Are you not going to say anything?" Salem asked, almost sounding disappointed as Six moved along, fully aware that she was getting closer to the source of the thumping.

"What am I supposed to say?" Six finally muttered as she finally saw light in the distance.

They were strange, moving up and down and getting steadily larger, partially illuminating the source of the thumping. It was hard to tell what it was, but it looked vaguely humanoid and what little she could see of it implied heavily abused metal.

"A fair point." Salem responded. "Though I think you'll have plenty to say to my champion, well I call him a champion, technically he's just the longest surviving Geist I've got. But still, he is more then equipped for the job."

"So, you had a ghost possess one of your stupid robots?" Six asked mockingly looking up at the ceiling as the two lights go closer to her. "Not a great plan to be honest."

"Oh I didn't use a Promethean." Salem explained off handedly. "You see I used… Actually, Emerald raise the lighting. She should see this."

Suddenly the hallway lights sprang back to life, fully illuminating everything around them. Six's eyes took a second to adjust but when they did she saw what was staring her down and gasped.

"No, no it can't be…" Six muttered, stunned as her set of Mjolnir power armor stared her down.


	105. Chapter 105

Chapter 105: I might be slightly screwed

Winter felt the wind whip up around her as she fell, watching the rescue bullhead flying away behind her as she aimed for the Command ship's main deck, getting ready for her landing as she called up a glyph at her feet, not to stop her completely, just slow her down enough that her Aura would be able to tank most of the damage that should have been channelled straight to her legs.

Finally, she hit the deck, crouched over and looking up at the carnage around her.

Atlesian Command ships are meant to have many things, multiple guns; a fleshed-out command structure, ten different break rooms and enough ammo that it can theoretically fight a battle by itself. What they are not meant to have are massive spheres sticking out of the main deck with Grimm pouring out of the open hole in them.

They were also not meant to be littered with the corpses of Atlesian soldiers clearly overwhelmed by a magnitude of Grimm, only a few were still fighting and all of them were clustered near Adam Taurus as his Red blade carved through the approaching army of Grimm.

Winter sighed, she wanted to get to the control deck fast (even more so now she saw how many of her comrades had fallen) and that was going to be a problem with the deck overridden with Grimm.

Still, she could see the deck and a few jump glyphs should have had her there in a flash. The problem came in when one of the last jumps was a bit to near Adam's blade letting out it's build up.

A red burst of energy exploded out of it's sheath, flying forwards and decimating anything that came into contact with it. Unfortunately, the sole of Winters left foot happened to be a part of that and it exploded with pain, shattering her concentration and crashing down onto the main deck, screaming as she clutched at her foot.

"Shit!" One of the surviving soldiers yelled, springing over to Winter and looking at her foot. "Dammit Taurus!" He yelled as Adam ignored him, walking forwards and getting ready to take on more Grimm.

"She should have stayed out of my way." He responded, not even looking around as he jumped into another fight.

"Asshat!" One of the other soldiers yelled as he blasted on a Beowolf that had gotten a little too confident and tried to approach the group.

"Dammit." The Soldier looking over Winter muttered before turning his attention back to her foot. "Ma'am this is really bad, we need to stop the bleeding but the med bays overflowing right now and I don't have anything on me…"

Inside her head Winter swore loudly. This wasn't good, she needed to get out of this mess, she needed to help, but she couldn't keep going, not with her foot bleeding, even if the blood loss didn't get her the pain would make it hard to move anywhere if she left it open.

This was bad, she needed a way out of it; how did you treat injury's like this in a rush? What did you do with an insane injury that no normal girl should be able to just walk of quickly…

Suddenly something Weiss had once written to her flashed across her mind, the message she'd sent to her to confirm she'd made it into Beacon…

… _other than that dolt Ruby the craziest person attending must belong to 'Noble Six' Yes, she her name really is an adjective describing a number; I think I might be able to guess where she gets her crazy aspects, whoever named her is clearly insane._

 _Anyway, this girl is similar to Ruby in the sense that while she might be insane there does appear to be some logic behind her madness. To give you an example, she got a Nevermore feather through her arm. Full penetration. And she asked me to cauterise it because it was better than trying to bandage it._

 _Yes, she did that. (I must confess I did do what she asked, used fire dust in Myrtenaster to super heat the wound) honestly that girl must have either been really crazy or desperate…_

"I think I know which it was now." Winter muttered, reaching inside her coat and retrieved a vial of fire dust, opened her own sword and injected it, waiting until the blade was red hot.

"Ma'am what are you doing…" The soldier looking her over asked as she moved her sword into position. His eyes widened as he looked at what she was going to do. "… Ma'am I really have to advise against this…"

"Don't worry, I have it on record that this does work." Winter muttered, before looking up at him with an awkward expression: "…But something to bite on would be appreciated."

Sighing the soldier removed his ammo belt and gave her one of the larger pouches to her.

"Thank you." Winter said as she stuffed the thing into her mouth and pushed the blade down onto her foot.

The pain that went through her could be scaled somewhere between: Ungodly and _ARGHHH! Fucking hell argh! ARGH! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCKING SHITTING ASSARSING FUCK! ARGGGHHHHHH!_

"Are you okay!?" The soldier cried, perhaps it was a little bit stupid, obviously she wasn't; on the other hand he was panicking, it was aloud.

When she finally removed the red hot blade Winter answered his question:

"Given the circumstances this is the best I could ask for." She explained weakly before removing both her mangled boot and her intact one, no point wearing heals on only one feet, it would throw you more off balance then they normally did.

Staggering up Winter gingerly tested her foot. As she expected it hurt like no body's business, but at the very least it worked.

"Okay, I'm going to get onto the command deck." Winter declared as she readied a new glyph (which would have been easier if her left foot wasn't screaming in agony) and got ready to jump, leaping into the air and crashing through the glass window for the main deck (this was also much harder than it should have been because the glass was designed to fend off anything you could throw at it, in some ways Winter was glad it didn't do it's job properly, she didn't need a head injury as well as a burnt foot)

"Winter!" Ironwood called as she slammed into the ground, forcing herself to her feet as she shook off most of the glass pieces that had landed on her.

"General Ironwood!" She called as she balanced on her un injured foot. "Why aren't the Knights online?" She asked, she'd have liked more time to talk about what had been happening or what was going on, but she was more worried about passing out from the pain in her foot.

"The computer systems down" Lieutenant Blaze explained. "Well, the terminals are, we can't get put in any inputs, we'd have to fix the computer, which neither of us are qualified to do."

"Then move over." Winter said, limping towards the main computer system, leaning on the wall for support as she let her left foot hang in the air until she stood over the Computer system, sliding down and grateful to take the weight of her cartelized foot.

"Ma'am what are you…" Lieutenant Blaze asked as Winter began to pull out wires from the console.

"Getting a way to talk to the system again." Winter explained as she pulled out her Scroll. "I'm a specialist, we're trained for everything."

"Is that going to be powerful enough?" Blaze asked, when Winter shot her a scowl she added. "I mean, it's a super computer, I'm not convinced a Scroll is going to be powerful enough to run the entire system."

"To run the entire system forever, yes. To send one basic command? This will do." Winter muttered as the screen kicked in, a bunch of new icons plastered all over her Scroll screens. "Lieutenant, which command directory will activate the Knights?" Winter asked, looking out as best as she could, given her Scroll was now wired into the main console.

"Command DA-K200-A" Blaze explained as Winter began to flick through the various screens until she found the 'DA' command list and scrolled down until she found the K200 option.

"Knights are online sir." Winter called.

"Good, send Alpha, Beta and Gamma companies to the ground." Ironwood ordered as he looked out over the deck. "Then send Delta up to protect the ships main deck."

"Enacting sir." Winter said as she selected the various company's and set them off. "Knights online sir."

"Good, I can see them." Ironwood said as he watched his robotic army match out onto the main deck, some of them retrieving injured Atlesian troops and the rest open firing at every other creature on the main deck… including Adam.

"We didn't take him off the dangerous criminal list did we?" Ironwood asked as he turned to Blaze who shook her head.

"I don't think so…" She muttered as she looked at Adam, who was now blocking shots from the Knights while continuing to fight the Grimm and Prometheans crawling over the deck, eventually being backed to the very edge. Sending the command deck a fowl look he leapt off and disappeared.

"Sir should we pursue?" Blaze asked as she looked at the General who shook his head.

"Adam lose is not ideal, but we should prioritise the Grimm and Promethean army's over one terrorist. For now, we need to get back in the fight. Schnee can you get the guns back up and working?" Ironwood asked as Winter nodded from under the control panel.

"I'll make it so General." Winter said as she began to mess around more with her scroll.

…

 **Authors notes: No, I didn't forget about Adam and Winter and wanted to wrap their story up before I moved to the actual climax… Okay maybe a little bit, but they should be done now so we should be returning to Six next chapter. I'm sorry I did want to write a bit for her in this chapter but I need more time to plan her fight out, got the rough outline but details are missing so that's why it wasn't here. Sorry for everyone waiting for the answer to the cliff hanger, I don't want to make this a regular thing.**

 **Also, the command Winter used is Defence Automations Knights 200 Activate. Not very important but seeing as I went through with the effort of thinking something up instead of just spewing a bunch of random letters I felt the need to write it down and explain it…**


	106. Chapter 106

Chapter 106: Six vs Six Part 1

Six's heart had stopped, her armor was staring her down, it's scratched beaten up purple and orange exterior staring her down through the one eye that sat inside the visor, moving from left to right as it tried to focus on her.

Six had maybe half a second to dodge as the Grimm pulled its right fist back, getting ready to drive it into the wall behind her. Thinking fast Six leapt into a roll to the left and sprang to her feet as the armor sank its fist into the door behind her.

Six went for a punch (if she tried to use Mjolnir (the hammer) here she'd get caught in the blast range and chances were her Aura wouldn't protect her) unfortunately she forgot her current circumstances as she made contact with the Grimm's helmet; he Aura being the only thing that stopped her hand from turning to dust as it made contact with the solid metal.

"That was not your smartest move." Salem commented dully over the intercom as Six staggered back, her eyes going wide as the armor span around with a burst of speed she wouldn't have thought possible and back handed her into corridor wall.

For the first time ever Six knew what it was like for any of her targets as she hunted them down. Her armor was both ludicrously fast and stupidly strong (at least if the dents being left in the wall were anything to go by) She felt like a fist stuck in the world's smallest barrel having a chain gun pointed down at her.

 _Come on think! How do we get out of this?_

 _Run away?_

 _Good idea._

Six bolted to the left as a punch aimed for her head. The Armor tried to track her but the suit moved so fast it was already stuck in the wall by the time it realised Six had moved. Growling it wrenched its hand free but over did it, staggering backwards and slamming into the back wall.

Angered it pulled its self-free and stuck its arms out in front of itself so It could slam into the wall in front of it and stop. It then looked around and noticed Six, who was simultaneously trying to look over her shoulder and run away as fast as she could.

 _Wait, can it not keep up with the suit?_

 _Well we needed the genetic enhancements to man it properly… I guess this is a creature with normal reaction times reacts if it could live through all the…_

The thought was promptly cut off as the possessed armor leapt forwards, grabbing Six around the neck and lifting her body into the air; letting out an unnatural scream that sent shivers down Six's spine before throwing her down the hallway.

Her body slammed into it and bounced, much in the same way an action figure thrown by an angry child would. It was almost comical as her body flipped over in the air repeatedly, slamming into the ground with the forced of a crashed freight train with each impact.

Six new what was going to happen after her third bounce. The dread in her as she flew through the air was so thick she hoped it might stop her next impact. Sadly, it did not, and her body slammed into the metal flooring with a sickening thud as her Aura finally gave out, shattering as she was flung up again.

A mixture of pure adrenalin plus a fair amount of luck was the only reason she was able to right herself in the air, just about able to land properly instead of crashing into the air again. It still hurt but at the very least nothing was broken as she stood up at the end of a dead end. A heavy duty wall behind her.

Although the Armor which had cleared the distance between the two of them in a couple of seconds might be trying to correct this oversight.

Six only just rolled out of the way as the armors right fist was pulled back and driven into the wall behind her with the force of a wrecking ball. Then her eyes widened in the few seconds she had as rolled out of the wall of the left fist, only to see the right one coming back at her.

This continued for ten horrifically tense seconds as the armor let lose on the wall behind her.

However, the punch struck at the eleventh second revealed something about the wall behind her; most notably that it wasn't in fact a wall at all. It was a blast door that was meant to be impenetrable.

Apparently, whoever designed the Mjolnir armor didn't like the idea of something you couldn't smack down and elected instead to give the suit so much streangth that even ancient super advanced blast door crumpled under their weight.

Taking the nano second advantage she had as the armor staggered forwards (Having been unprepared for the shattering wall) Six ducked low and gripped her chest plate, using its own weight and momentum against it Six flung the suit down the hall.

With a couple of seconds to breath Six ran forwards, pointing Mjolnir behind her and blasting herself over the armor as it tried to right itself. Crashing down on the other side she ran as fast as she could towards a rapidly closing door.

Apparently Salem had wanted to keep her trapped in the tight corridor where she could be easily cornered and beaten to death and hadn't thought up a secondary plan to stop Six if she got out seeing as the doors were only just closing.

Six could see the blast doors sealing, leaving an ever tinier space for her to fit through as she approached it. The sound of her bare feet being drowned out by the metal crash of her armors footsteps as it sprinted after her. Getting through the door was her only chance of getting away from it so she leaped just too early.

Most of her made it through but the armor was able to grab her foot before she disappeared through the gap.

 _Dammit!_

Six grabbed the back of the blast doors as tightly as she could, it was harder than it should have been because the door was sliding open now and she was rapidly running out anything to hold onto as her armor began to pull her back through.

Six only had one idea in her head, with one hand she fought to keep herself from being pulled through, the muscles tensing through her body as she struggled to stay on that side of the door. With the other hand she built up a charge in her hammer. She was only getting one shot at this and if she got it even slightly wrong…

Her armor was apparently tired of waiting for her to come through because it let out an powerful wrench that sent her flying through as it readied it's spare hand to pulverise her. its dream was short lived as the only thing it could see as Six came through was Mjolnir's metal head as it let lose a blast of Fire energy.

The flames made contact with the Geist's single eye, the one exposed bit of the creature and it roared with pain as the concentrated fire burned through it. Screaming in a way that would haunt the dreams of anyone who heard it for the rest of their lives it staggered back, trying to clutch the wound with its arms.

The problem it encountered threw a spanner into the works however, The suit was too fast and what was meant as a way of physically holding its injury devolved into it smacking itself in the face with the sort of force one expects from a crashing bus. In all honesty Six would have found the situation funny if she hadn't once again been running for her life.

While all the doors in the next section had been sealed there was a reason Six hadn't been trapped there, most notably because of the emergency hatch Six was struggling to rip open, digging her small hands into the hatch; struggling to unstick it and get it into the maintenance area.

 _Come on, come on!_

Six could feel her muscles ripping apart as she tried desperately to force the hatch to open, the burn wasn't going to hold that thing back for long, so she needed it to open. Digging her feet into the floor in front of her she threw her entire weight into getting the hatch open.

 _That things getting up!_

 _It's not moving! What can we do!_

 _I don't know! Maybe we could…_

With nothing left to lose, Six braced before jumping, throwing herself into the air as she tried to pull the door back. Finally the door gave, ripping open and sliding back with a screeching grind as the hatch gave way to the thinnest opening it could manage.

Realising it would have to do Six sprinted forwards and tried to squeeze into the gap she'd made. It was small and it felt like all of her was getting crushed as she scraped along the edges, her bare skin screaming as it made contact with the door. But finally the bulkier parts of her body were through and she was able to scramble down the hatchway to try and gain an edge on her armor.

However, this Grimm was one of Salem's best for a reason; it didn't get tired, it didn't stop. It kept going. Grabbing the door with its hand it pulled, eventually getting more force by sticking its foot onto the frame to produce more force and send the door slamming open, freeing it from whatever it was stuck on and climbing in to continue pursuing Six…

…Only to discover a couple of floors with that course of action. Number one it didn't fit. The armor was too bulky for a small maintenance hatch to fit. Number two was that a side effect of being stuck was that it was vulnerable to Six blasting it with the last of her fire charges as it struggled to either move forwards or get out of the hatch.

Instead of trying to close the hatch Six elected to keep moving forwards, she'd be fine leaving it open given it couldn't chase after her, smiling Six began to look for an exit, once she was out she could orient herself and try to reunite with the rest of Noble team.

…

"She's escaped." Emerald growled as she looked at her screens, unable to see Six now she was in the vents.

"Don't lose hope." Salem said as she walked towards a different screen. "This appears to be a map of the vents." She commented.

"I suppose, but it doesn't tell us where she is." Emerald pointed out as she brought the screen nearer to her.

"Can it not detect blockages?" Salem asked, a smile on her face as she watched the idea click with Emerald. "Once you find her, flush her out."

Emerald let a cruel grin spread over her face as she began the blockage scan, smiling as she detected the moving blockage; worryingly close to going in the right direction. Deciding this wouldn't do Emerald activated the system purge.

"She should be ejected here." She said, pointing to a large room on the map.

"Excellent." Salem commented as she gave the order to her Geist. Noble Six had brought herself a few minutes, that was all. She was not going to get away from her.

After all, what could she do in a few minutes?


	107. Chapter 107

Chapter 107 Six VS Six Part 2

The answer to Salem's unasked question was simple: An awful lot.

Six had been… surprised when the vent she was crawling down suddenly had a torrent of air shoot through it that blasted her off her feet and sent her flying forwards; down the vent, slamming into the next side of the wall and getting flung of again.

What followed was basically a game of getting slammed into every approaching wall and eventually spat out into a large room, sprawling to the ground and pushing herself up off the ground she looked around.

She appeared to be inside a hanger of some sort, with a set of double doors at one end (presumably to let people into the room) with two staircases either side, with six layers leading up to walkways and racks where ships had presumably sat once upon a time. On the other end of the room were the hanger doors, massive towering lumps of steel that stretched far up into the high ceiling and were easily more than one hundred feet wide. Still though, this wasn't what Six was drawn to in the room.

While Six hadn't really experienced one before the feeling the welled up inside her was exactly how she imagined Christmas morning felt to a small child. Suddenly finding a hole bunch of new toys for you to play with scattered everywhere.

While, admittedly a lot of her problems could have been solved if Seven had managed to avoid bringing over a bunch of additional crap (for example the Covenant troops) she would admit it had some pro's… most of which could be found scattered in this room.

She grew a certain amount of respect for 498 and his sorting efforts as she looked at a room that clearly hadn't even been entered yet. Serval vehicles lay scattered across the room, most of them upside down or having been flung over so violently that they were missing vital components. Like, say; the wheels.

In the useable department Six could see two UNSC vehicles (and sadly neither of them were the Scorpion that lay on it's back in the corner) A Gausshog and a AC-220 Gunship, or to use the name everyone actually used: A Vulture.

A part of her wondered what the gunship was doing there, they weren't exactly common nowadays having been replaced predominantly by the Flacon, which had the nice advantage of being harder to hit and thus came back from missions more. She suspected this one was about to be scrapped before everything went tits up as she walked inside, noticing all the crew seats had been ripped out and a lot of the panelling was gone exposing some of the electrical systems.

Still what made Six happy was what she found inside the one remaining storage compartment. Clothing, finally she was able to pull a shirt over her bruised torso (She had slammed into metal walls repeatedly without an Aura, Six was personally surprised she'd made it out without breaking anything) and because the shirt belonged to a marine it was large enough to form a very ill fitting dress.

 _Well I'm not complaining._

Six then walked to the cockpit and saw to her delight that the pilots seat was still in place and so were most of the instruments.

 _I guess they didn't get far in before the Covenant fucked everything up._

Six grinned as she began the start up sequence, getting the ship to hover a few feet off the ground and holding it there. She then got off and walked towards the Gausshog. Smiling she jumped up onto the back and pointed the gun some of the other wrecked vehicles and tanks, blasting them so they were in the way of the main door into the room. It wasn't going to keep her armor out of the room for long (Six knew full well it wouldn't, she knew what the suit was capable off) But it gave her time to get on with the next part of her plan.

She ran as fast as she could, scrabbling over the piled up vehicles and pulling herself up onto one of the boarding paths. Once she was up she began to run up the stairs, hoping that the booth she could see at the top of the room would have the door controls she needed to get out.

It was as she reached the third floor that the doors below her opened as her armor tried to enter the room, thankfully it got knocked back by a falling warthog that had been sitting on it's nose against the door. Which now it was open toppled forwards and flattened the suit.

Relieved but also knowing that wouldn't stop it for long Six sprinted up the rest of the stairs, managing to hit level four before her armor forced the Warthog off it and jumped up to the next layer.

The weight of its landing shook the entire structure. Gasping Six sped up even further as the Armor chased her.

Six only had three levels of an advantage and that still didn't feel like enough as she was only just able to dive into the control room and slam the door shut before the armor was able to grab her again; it's fingers only just missing her ankle and grasping at the air as she crashed to the ground, slamming the door controls as she hit the ground.

Six was concerned the door really wouldn't hold it for long so she forced herself to her feet and looked at everything on the control panel.

It was gibberish, she had no idea what any of the controls in front of her meant, it all looked like crazy gibberish and she didn't have Seven to help her here.

"No, no!" She yelled, slamming the screen in frustration, she couldn't have made it this far to fail now!

Suddenly something appeared, an extremely low polygon model of an orange human girl, flickering and spasming it said:

"Stop her."

Then it was gone, disappearing in a flash the screen briefly displayed the words: Code Giran before the doors began to slide open.

"Yes!" Six cried, fist pumping as she watched the doors move open… only to have dread well up inside her as her armor appeared on the other side of the glass window showing the outside of the booth. It cracked it's kunckles, diving through the glass and standing up, turning around to stare at Six… Only to see the girl had vaulted over the console and through the hole it had made.

For what felt like the twelfth time in the last hour Six was running for her life, taking the steps four at a time as she bounded down them, trying to get the head start she knew wouldn't be enough.

Her dark thoughts were confirmed as her Armor dived down the stairs, grabbing her around the neck and forcing her down. Six screamed as her head slammed into the metal floor at the bottom of the stairs, the pain was immense and only a fraction of her Aura had come back, just enough to stop her skull from shattering open.

As if she didn't feel enough like a T-shirt in the washing machine with how much she was getting thrown around and slammed into everything it was then that the ancient walkway they were standing on chose to break.

The two fell and backwards, the armor's weight proving its downfall as it slammed into the gun barrel, the small tube hitting the undersuit enough to move it and disturb some of the electronics, sparking slightly and causing the arms to release and be sent flying backwards.

Six was flung to the ground, seeing the Vulture nearby she ran towards, something of a recurring theme in her life at the moment as she sprinted along, hoping to reach the Vulture before her armor caught up. Thankful for her the suit was still spasming and glitching out so Six was able to make it, actually the armor hadn't moved, it was still flailing around and glitching so it remained stuck where it was.

Happy that for one luck appeared to be on her side Six dived into the Vulture and took off. Idealy she would have spun it around and unloaded on her old suit (Sentimentality meant nothing when it was trying to kill you) but the ramps didn't give her enough room, she was going to have to settle for getting out alive.

She guided the Vulture out of the Salem's crusade, finally able to take a sigh of relief. The ship flew well even if it was perhaps a bit sluggish, showing its age perhaps but still it worked.

The Hanger Six had flown out of was located on the base of the Salem's crusade, meaning it was relatively safe to move through the air here. (at the very least the guns weren't targeting her) With some piece at last Six booted up the radio on the Vulture, flicking through it for signals; hoping to notify Noble Team that she was still alive.

If she knew what was going on with Noble Team she probably wouldn't be so relaxed, so in some ways it was good that she didn't know.


	108. Chapter 108

Chapter 108: Fight to the Bridge

"If she dies again before we get to her I swear I'm going to kill her." Ilia muttered, rolling her eyes and following Seven as she guided the group along the corridors.

"Trust me Six can handle herself." Emile explained. "Even if she is…" He went red thinking about Six and her current attire. "…Look she'll be fine, Seven how much further to the bridge?"

"Four levels up and then another six hundred meters." Seven explained as she reached a shut door, also with a sparking control panel outside it. "Dammit looks like an electronic override wont work… still these are just locked… Jorge don't suppose you would consider a manual override would you?"

Jorge grinned as he cracked his knuckles, charging forwards and smashing the doors down, the grey metal flying backwards and clanging into the opposing wall.

"Those doors are meant to be tougher than that." Seven commented as Jorge brushed himself off.

"It's a law of the universe…" Jorge explained as he turned to look at Seven. "…If it goes against a Spartan it will fail."

"Yeah, that seems about right." Seven muttered… "Okay, you know what I'm adding that to the database." She muttered as she flashed brightly for a second. "But still… that door was meant to hold off a full on assault of Forerunner tech… how did…"

"Well Forerunners are pussies then." Emile muttered as they began climbing the stairs.

"Unarmored they were about as squishy as a normal human, maybe a little bit taller?" Seven explained as they climbed up the stairs. "But if they had a Guardian on their side… well lets just say it wont end well."

"What's a Guardian?" Kat asked as they trudged up stairs. "Is that a Forerunner equivalent of a Spartan?"

"No." Seven said flatly. "As far as I know they never really had anything like that, pretty powerful armor, yes. Anything on a Spartan level of training and disapline; no. Gaurdians are big mechanical bird things."

"That doesn't sound so bad." Emile commented.

"One was enough to destroy an entire planet if the population wasn't behaving." Seven explained. "Trust me, you do not want to encounter one."

"Knowing our luck I'll bet Salem has one." Ilia said, looking at the ground as she said that.

"Trust me she doesn't." Seven said as she turned to look at the Chameleon girl.

"And how do you know that?" Ilia shot back, looking up to fix her eyes on the AI who rolled her eyes.

"Because if she did have one she would have used it by now." Seven snapped. "Besides Reach didn't have one and I didn't drag anything Forerunner off planet to me. Ergo, we're fine and so is she."

"I…" Ilia began before Seven butted in.

"Ilia, I get that you're worried, we're all worried, but you can't do anything other than keep trying and open the doors. So, stop moping and get on with helping us." Seven explained as they reached the second level they needed to climb.

"What if we're too late?" Ilia asked darkly.

"Then there was nothing we could do because we're going as fast as we can." Seven responded. "Keep dragging your feet and…"

Ilia moved like a blur, bolting up the stairs, leaping up the stairs as she charged forwards, hitting the fourth floor and kicking the door down.

"Seven." Kat said simply, looking at the AI who looked pissed.

"Yes…?" She asked through gritted teeth as she clenched her glowing orange fists.

"Are you sure these doors were ever that strong?" Kat asked, fighting to keep a grin off her face as Seven scowled.

"You know I think someone might have skimped on a few construction elements." Seven growled, barely opening her mouth as she spoke, wondering how the hell doors meant to be near indisputable were being taken out by a teenager.

 _At least the power armor super soldier makes sense, she doesn't look like she's ever worked out before!_

Then they heard Ilia scream and the others charged up, practically throwing themselves through the door and looked at what Ilia had seen.

In some ways they should have been prepared for this; Fin had come with them to fight his own kind, all seven of his fellow Hunters were standing in this corridor, guarding the bridge door… and they had seen Ilia.

"Shit!" Emile yelled, reaching for one of his knives, throwing it as one of the Hunters smashed the blade out of the air and began the charge.

"Ilia take her!" Carter called, pulling out Seven's AI chip and throwing it to the Chameleon girl who caught it in her hands as the Hunters ran towards her.

"What are you…" Ilia began as Carter moved over to a vent on the wall and kicked it free of it's connectors.

"Get in here and go straight." Carter explained. "We'll hold these guys off."

"But…" Ilia began, she really didn't want to abandon anyone else down here…

"We got this." Emile said, pulling Tusky out and cocking it and grinning madly as he ran at one of the approaching Hunters.

"You go help Six." Jorge added before unleashing a burst of fire with his gun. "We've got your back."

"I…" Ilia began as she walked towards the vent, this didn't feel right; what if the threat was worse on the bridge what if…

 _You can do it Ilia._

Then the roof exploded, seconds after Ilia heard the familiar voice in her head she had to dive back as a figure smashed his way into the room, smashing to the ground and adding.

 _I will hold them off._

Fin rose to his feet, injured badly he staggered, the burnt wound in his chest standing out as it added even more injuries to his torso and burnt his armor further. His shield was still gone but his canon was ready, and he sent a blast out, only just blocked by the Hunter it was aimed at.

 _Go, They wont listen to me, stop them!_

Fin staggered a bit as he sent this thought, leaning against the wall he looked at the group in front of him.

 _We will back you up but you need to go now!_

Ilia moved, diving into the vents and moving as fast as her body would let her she moved down towards the end of the hallway.

One of the enemy Hunters let out a cry of rage, only to be stopped as Emile reached it, blasting its chin and sending orange blood flying as he dived backwards to avoid its retaliatory shield smash.

Noble Team looked at the fight in front of them as all the Hunters got ready to fight, waiting until the exact second before charging across the field towards their opponents.

…

 **Authors notes: Guess who's knackered again? Not quite sure why this time but what I do know is I feel dead right now and this is the best I can do. Hopefully I'll feel better by Friday.**


	109. Chapter 109

Chapter 109: Hunter VS Hunters

 _Brothers, this is your last chance, please stand down._

Fin knew what the answer was going to be, he'd known ever since he first detected them on board, but he had to try even if it seamed impossible.

 _Die Heretic!_

If Fin could have he would have sighed, but he couldn't so he decided to stop messing about. As the Hunter nearest him swung it's shield he caught it, raising his hand and blocking the crush easily as he felt the power of Merlots enhancements surge through him.

He knew Mgalekgolo brothers were shocked even if they had no readable face and he instantly capitalized on that. Moving his gun arm into place and blasting the first Hunter, the plasma burst shorted out the guys shields, Fin took advantage of this and charge at the Hunter, grabbing him and throwing him over his shoulders, sending him back towards Noble team who jumped on him instantly.

Carter open fired with his battle rifle at the exposed flesh before Jorge finished it off by throwing all his weight onto the downed Hunters head, crushing it.

The other Hunters however were not dazed anymore and they all leapt into the fray, only slowed down by there own bulk getting in the way as they all tried to fit down the corridor. This gave Noble Team their edge in what should have been a doomed fight, they could move more freely where as the Hunters were considerably bulkier and more hindered.

This gave them the edge in speed and agility… now if only Hunters didn't have better in other ways, like strength, firepower, armor…

Still though, Spartans are not trained to be stopped by such minor details and Noble Team was no different with them slipping between the hunters and slashing, shooting or stabbing them as best as they could while running around.

They couldn't just run to the end of the corridor and force the door open, if they did that the Hunters would follow, and they'd have to deal with them as well as whoever was on the other side of the door. In theory Ilia should be able to plug Seven into the ship if she could go unnoticed but a large and powerful distraction struck Noble Team as being far more likely to succeed than a full stealth run.

So, everyone did all they could, even their allies fought hard. Fin was a demon; the enhancements Merlot had given him made him near unstoppable even by his kinds insane standards.

 _In some ways I almost regret what I did to the man… Almost._

Fin fought to keep the image of Bond Brother out of his head as he fought, hacking and slashing through everything that came his way, fighting as hard as he could to keep them off the rest of the team.

 _If it wasn't for Turak…_

Fin's missing gut was definitely not helping anything, but that wasn't the point of this, he had to keep going, had to keep fighting, had to give them a chance… even if he didn't have one.

Penny was also not pulling any punches, her new body was unusual, clearly made for a human interface and reactions instead of a machine. She could work with it definitely, but Six and Ruby's modifications stood out hugely from the smooth well linked components, theirs were just kind of thrown on at random and it showed. The left hand was sort of faulty and wouldn't always grip properly, the new weapons were the tiniest amount slower to fire; not a noticeable difference to humans, hell if she'd been back in her old body she probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference, but she wasn't in her old body; she was in tis suit and she did not like it.

It was powerful, no doubting that, the minigun bore into the hunters with little difficulty and the missiles were great at smashing down both energy shields and their physical shields. And the strength was ridiculous. Her old body could stop a truck easily, in fact she had done before. But this thing… this thing could have pushed the truck the other way with one hand and little difficulty. But the suit was flawed.

It was never meant to be AI ran and it showed, she couldn't feel anything in the feet, they were just slabs of metal with no sensors in them, the entire body was like that, numb. No feedback, no connections, nothing to even try and pretend this body was alive.

 _Makes sense, this machine was never made to house something like me… but still…_

Penny mentally shook her head, this wasn't the time, she had to keep going, keep the suit functioning; keep fighting.

 _I need to give Ilia as much time as possible… and make sure everyone comes back, for her…_

Penny was not an idiot, Naive maybe; but not dumb. It had admittedly taken her a while, but she had eventually worked something out about Six, her first roommate had changed since Ilia came back and knowing why the two were they way they were had made something finally click inside Penny's head.

 _Six had a crush on me._

As she drove a metal fist into the head of an approaching hunter she wondered why she hadn't seen it sooner, the way she liked being close to her, the things she did, the reason she went bright red while conducting the anatomy test (The two had indeed checked to see how accurate Penny was to a real girl and Six had concluded the answer was very) Heck, even the fact that she'd wanted to do the test...

Kicking the Hunter in the guts and sending a shot from her missile pod at him to destroy his plasma cannon Penny turned around to aim at the other five hostile Hunters her minigun. She didn't know how to feel about any of this (not that it would matter, Six had clearly moved past her at this point) but she did know Six was her friend and she looked after them. She hadn't let Roman hurt Ruby back at the docks and she wasn't going to let this Salem person hurt Six here.

…

"Come on pick up!" Six yelled, slamming down on the radio with annoyance, one signal, that was all she asked for, one signal so she could ask her friends if they were still alive.

"Sir I've got a-!"

"Kat!? Kat is that you?" Six called, moving her head to the mic as she tried to ignore the sound of gunfire and heavy smashes. "What's going on!"

"Hunters! We can handle it, Six are you okay!? How are you talking to us!?" Kat responded as the familiar noise of her energy sword making contact with heavy metal sounded out, like she'd just had to block a Hunters arm shield.

"I found a Vulture with a radio? Where are you I'll come help!" Six responded, desperate to try and stop those hunters.

"Negative Spartan!" Carter called as the sound of his battle rifle firing sounded in the background. "You need to get to the bridge, Ilia is bringing Seven but she could do with backup. Go help her then get off with the Vulture." Carter explained as he sent off another burst of fire with his rifle.

"Sir…" Six began before Carter yelled over her.

"Six we can't let Salem get to the surface, we've got to stop her here, no matter what…" He said. There was sadness in his voice, but not despair; almost like he'd already excepted…

Six sat slumped in her seat, could it happen? Was Noble team going to split again…?

"No Sir." Six said, gripping the controls tighter as she angled the Vulture around.

"What was that Spartan?" Carter asked, his tone completely unreadable as Six sat up again, adjusting a few settings before bringing the ship around.

"I am not leaving you, or Kat, or Jorge, or Penny… All of us are making it out of this." Six said simply as she began to change her flight path, unfortunately bringing herself up and within range of the ships main guns.

"Noble…" Carter began before Six butted in.

"I'm sorry Carter but no, I get that the goal is important… but I am so sick of seeing this team ripped apart, I am tired of getting separated from you guys; we're all coming back, you understand?" Six asked.

"Six…" Carter began.

"Sir I will drag your dead body back with me if I have to, so answer me this; do, you, understand?" Six asked through gritted teeth.

"… We'll do out best." Carter finally answered.

"Good, see you soon." Six then killed the coms, she needed to focus if she was going to dodge all those guns in a Vulture, which sadly had the reputation of flying about as well as the average Bald eagle… If the bird was plastered out of its skull.

 _This is going to suck._

…

"Okay everyone we have evac sorted!" Carter yelled as he jumped back from a Hunter's swinging arm. "Try to stay alive until then."

 _Noted!_

Fin charged past, slamming one of the Hunters into the wall and pummelling it with his arms, with his plasma cannon shattered and flung off from his body he had no choice other than to smash with his limbs… well that and the spiked barbs of Dust crystals that grew out of them which exploded on impact.

Unfortunately blowing the limb off of one of the hunters left him open to an attack from two of the others, while the other four (Even the one that was missing its plasma cannon limb) distracted Noble Team and Penny the two who had received the least damage lashed out at Fin.

Grabbing his arm's they kicked him to the ground with one foot each, driving so much force into his back without letting go of his arms that they tore the limbs off.

Fin's head practically exploded as he fell to the ground, getting stomped and kicked from the other two Hunters, he lost track of how long this was happening for but eventually they stopped. Apparently they'd had their fun and were ready to get on with their actual job they raised their plasma cannons, getting ready to end the heretics life.

That was when Fin moved. Suddenly his legs pulled back and crunched before exploding outwards, springing to his feet and crashing down with an insane amount of force. Fin was in pain yes, his head was basically on fire with the loss of his arms, but he wasn't done yet, not by a long shot.

He jumped to the left, presenting his Dust Crystal infused back to the Hunter he slammed into and kept moving, driving him into the wall and sinking the crystals deep into the other Hunters armor and even some of his exposed skin.

He then wrenched himself free, sprinting forwards and jumping at the other hunter, slamming his head down on him and bringing him to his feet before bringing a foot a up with so much force it was like his head disintegrated when it made contact. One second it was on the head and the next it disappeared almost instantly.

The Others had also been having look, Penny had capitalised on the Hunter that was missing its arm and had discharged her last rocked into the exposed bleeding socket, incarnating the inside of the Hunter and sending it crashing to the ground while Noble Team took the other three.

Everyone in the corridor had been injured in some way, weather it be scratches to armor or bleeding exposed parts all of them hurt in some way and despite being injured themselves Noble Team capitalised the fuck out of this opportunity.

Blasting and firing on the slightly dazed Hunters they fought to sink as many bullets and blades into them as possible, eventually able to bring them crashing down after sinking what felt like half the bullets in the world into their opponents.

They stood there, enjoying the few seconds of silence they got… before a loud explosion came from down the corridor and Six clearly yelling: "Get away from her you bitch!"

"We need to go, Fin get up and let's go!" Carter said, running forwards, before turning to look at the slumped over Hunter. "Fin what's wrong?"

Again, there was silence, carefully Carter approached him and gave him a nudge with his foot. The hunter didn't move, the shattered dust crystals glowing dully on his back, slowly fading as they got nearer.

"Fin…?" Kat asked as she got closer, carefully bending down and touching his skin; which confirmed what she had guessed. Fin was dead, either from Turak's injury's or the other Hunters, she didn't know either way, but she did know this: he was dead and none of them had even seen it happen.

It was strange for all of them; to feel bad for a fallen Hunter, lying there on the ground, his arms gone and his burnt armor cracked and scratched badly as he lay on the ground.

It hurt them to have to run down the corridor, to leave their friend behind, but they didn't have a choice, they had lost someone now and they would be damned if they lost anyone else.

…

 **Authors notes: To the guest who commented where the UNSC is in this story, I do agree that a huge fight over Remnant with the UNSC and the Covenant would be epic but… it wouldn't fit in this story and isn't something I'm interested in writing; it's too serious and well, I don't do super serious and dark, not that I don't have any of that in my story, but ultimately I'm trying to stick to a RWBY like tone over the Halo books/ deep lore tone. Not saying it's bad, it's just not my thing.**


	110. Chapter 110

Chapter 110: Shatter Gem

Crawling through vents was never something Ilia liked doing, they were far too tight for her liking (She did have a bit of an issue with claustrophobia) and if something bad happened you couldn't really get away from the danger, unless you knew how to crawl backwards fast (Ila had learnt it was just as hard as it looked) and even if you could do that a gunshot was guaranteed to move faster. So, in other words you had nowhere to run and were in near constant danger if anyone choose to chase you.

What this meant was that Ilia had one option, crawl as fast as she could and pray nothing bad happened along the way.

The loud crashes and thumps were not comforting, nor were the gunshots or the stabbing she could also hear, even if they were muffled by the walls separating everything from her.

Her heart rate spiked massively as something slammed into the walls, caving the side of the tunnel ahead of her and stopping her from advancing.

Now she had to back up, she couldn't stay where she was; but going back meant more time in the vents… She could probably make it work… but it might be better for her to go around and take the long route… but that would mean being stuck in the vents… Moving forwards, she looked at the gap ahead of her, she could get through that? Right?

She moved back a little bit, sticking her hand forwards and moving it through the gap ahead of her. Yeah, she could do this. Carefully she moved forwards, worming her arm into the gap; then she hit her first problem, just how tight the upcoming gap was.

She had to get her head through first, and it did fit… just. She could feel her skull scraping against the metal as she tried to move forwards. After a torturous minute of forcing herself through her head popped out as she was able to begin work moving the rest of her through the gap. And this was the where the major problem came in.

She wasn't moving, at all, her torso was stuck at an odd angle and she couldn't move anything through, her hips were just stuck and because only one of her arms were through she couldn't turn around or adjust her angle.

This was not good, she struggled to move forwards, but nothing was working. Had the walls always been that close to her? could she move anywhere?

 _Come on!_

Ilia reached out with the one arm she'd gotten through the gap and tried to grab something ahead of her and pull the rest of her body through, but she couldn't find anything, she needed something to grab onto and there wasn't anything.

 _No, no, no, no!_

Ilia's hand was slapping around frantically now, desperate to find something, fingers finding nothing to grab onto as she felt around.

She needed to get her other arm through, which was getting harder as her heart rate sped up and her movements got more frantic.

 _Come on, come on! I need to get through here? Can I go back?_

She tried to push herself back through the gap but her free arm refused to grip anything, so much sweat had built up on her hands by this point that she couldn't grip anything, her hand slipped constantly as nothing gripped the floor.

 _No, no, no, no! I can't be stuck! Come on Ilia, you can get out of this… you can get out of this… You can… Is this what it was like for them?_

Ilia did not want to be here, she couldn't stand it… Was this what her parent's had gone through, stuck in a gap with no way out? Or had they been taken out by a dust explosion? At least that would have been quick… this.

They were out there fighting for her, they were putting their lives on the line to by her time and she was now stuck! Why hadn't she gone around? All her fear had done was doom the world.

 _ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!_

Ilia wanted to do something, she wanted to last out, she wanted to hurt every single leaving thing within arms reach, this was going to doom the world? The fact she was stuck in a vent tunnel with a big dent!

"ARGGH! GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!" Ilia screamed, as she thrashed in her section of venting, but nothing worked…  
Until something smashed into the vent walls and buckled the wall inn front of her, revealing to Ilia a Hunter's head with a green spike of dust rammed through it. Gasping she reached forwards, her hands snatching at the lump of dust in front of her, if she could just grip it…

 _Yes!_

She grinned as she grabbed the dust, clenching it in her hands and driving it into the wall next to her and praying her Aura would be strong enough to stop the explosion that burst out as a result.

Coughing for a second as the smoke died down she forced herself forwards, moving as fast as she could to escape the smoke she crawled down the corridor as fast as she could, Seven's AI chip still on her as she reached the end of the vents, kicking the vent off and flopping out onto the bridge.

It occurred to Ilia that the only reason she wasn't dead was because Emerald wasn't paying attention, the Green haired girl was devoting all her attention to her main screen, showing the outside view of the ship and the small green craft she was trying to shoot down.

"Dammit not again!" Emerald cried as something flashed up on her screens.

"Ilia get me in closer!" Seven said quietly. "I need to see what was on that screen."

Ilia didn't say anything, you kept talking to a minimum on stealth missions, so despite the fact she had no idea what Seven was looking for she climbed up the nearest wall adjusting her skin while keeping as quite as she could she held out Seven's AI chip.

"Code Giran…" Seven muttered. "…She must have done something…"

Ilia really wanted to ask what the AI was on about at this point, but she decided against it and instead asked:

"Where do I plug you in?"

"That pedestal Emeralds standing in front of." Seven said simply.

 _Well of course it's in the worst possible place, why wouldn't it be?_

Ilia groaned, climbing up to the ceiling (after tucking her pony tail down her shirt, she'd been caught by letting it dangle one to many times before) and moved across the ceiling, stopping when she was above Emerald.

Slowly she moved her hands to the gun whip attached to her belt, freeing it and extending it.

Emerald didn't have time to react as Ilia's whip came whipping around and curled up around her waist and threw her across the room. The second Emerald crashed into the wall Ilia had dropped down and slotted Seven into her port.

"Of course this wasn't going to be easy…" Seven muttered as she appeared on the pedestal Emerald had been standing on a few seconds ago.

"What's going on?" Ilia asked, watching Emerald carefully as she lay slumped against the console (Her head laying in a shattered screen that sparked occasionally)

"Emeralds fucked with the systems, it's going to take me a while to boot the Slip Space drive with all this shit going on." Seven explained as she brought up the screens Emerald used to use to control the ship. "By the love of, what was this girl doing! Look by me some time!"

Ilia nodded as she got ready to fight, turning to face Emerald, her intent being to make sure she stayed down on the ground. Sadly, it had to change to 'Get the fuck out of the way' as Emerald lunged at her.

…

Six had heard legends about how bad Vultures were to fly, while they were a bit exaggerated Six couldn't say these ships were ever meant to pull of split second complex aerial manoeuvring; which on some level made Six wonder why the hell anyone approved the thing as a military vehicle.

She got the answer as she tried to feed the Vulture between to blasts from various guns along the side of the ship, the blasts fired of and impacted of some of the panelling flying off into the sky as Six tried to force her ship up higher.

It was at this point that Six really wished that the Salem's Crusade was designed worse than it was, or at the very least differently. The ship reminded Six of a millipede esc it was very long and each gun took the place of the legs, all of them had free movement around where they started; meaning they could point at basically anywhere that wasn't directly above or below the ships main body and there where a lot of guns to point and aim so one of them was nearly always pointed at anyone trying to fly in. And Six was manning a Vulture… a ship known for flying about as well as your average Brick.

Still Six wasn't going to let that little detail stop her. the many gun shots blowing part of the ship apart might have done if Six hadn't gone for a reckless but fast mentality, not that there was much of a choice on her part, she'd never dodge everything and if she was cautious she'd still get shot down before she got anywhere; so really flying stupidly fast was her only real option.

Guns blasted past her and the Vulture seamed to be making a strong effort to get hit by every single thing that got fired by it (As far as Six could tell it was trying to support and encourage the gun shots by flying into all of them so they felt special) however, by some miracle her Vulture was still flying as she passed over the main deck (It was admittedly leaning a little to the left but hey it was still somewhat airworthy)

Deciding that navigating the tunnels to get to the bridge would slow her down Six elected to go for a less than subtle approach as she Brought the Vulture up to the main windows of Salem's Crusade, flicking the safety of the missiles controls and sent a volley of missiles at the main window.

Her job of creating a door done Six grinned, turning the wonky Vulture around and lowering the ramp, jumping out onto the bridge just as Emerald lunged at Ilia.

Six responded in a calm and reasonable manner:

" **Get away from her you bitch!"** She screamed as she Swung Mjolnir at the green haired girls head.

…

 **Author's notes: Sorry this chapter was late but I was knackered from father's day and my brain refused to think straight last night, so I wrote it today instead.**


	111. Chapter 111

Chapter 111: **DIE!**

Six swung Mjolnir as hard as she could while she let out her battle cry, swinging the weapon and letting free a huge blast from her hammer, the shockwave flew forwards and crashed into the head of the green haired girl. She was flung backwards and slammed into the wall as Six grinned at Ilia.

"You okay?" She asked as Ilia nodded and got her whip ready to use.

"Yes, Seven how long do you need?" Ilia said, turning to Seven who shrugged while every point on her face moved around oddly forming the dumbest facial expressions Six had ever seen. (not many people could rotate their mouths in such a way that they appeared to be mounted sideways)

"Erm… Not sure." Seven admitted. "This desktop is ridiculous and I have no idea what I'm looking for… DUCK!" She suddenly yelled.

Six who had better reflex's saw what Seven was warning them about just fast enough that she was able to push Ilia to the ground as Emerald shot at the two of them, the two were just about able to get behind one of the computer consoles before the shots tore through them.

"…Right, I'll work fast." Seven muttered as Emerald got up and vaulted over the console Six and Ilia had been hiding behind, only to receive a blast from Mjolnir straight to her guts as Six grinned at her.

"You're going to have to do better than that." Six grinned as she jumped to her feet, only to have to immediately drop back to the ground as Emerald slashed at her with the orange energy blades on her new guns. Six suspected she'd misaimed the blast from Mjolnir and had put enough of a spin on Emerald that she'd been able to land on her feet and jump back towards her instantly.

Emerald flew over Six and went to aim her guns at Six before Ilia lashed out with her whip, wrapping it around Emeralds gun pulling it free from her hands. To the shock of both of them Emerald grinned, pulling her second gun free from it's holster and holding up her now empty hand as her gun flashed bright orange and the gun that Ilia had removed flashed back to her hands.

"You can't take me out of this fight." Emerald explained before jumping at them again as both of them were forced to jump around and spin in several undignified ways to avoid getting cut up into ribbons.

"Stop dancing around!" Emerald screened, her red eyes flashing brighter as she started to open fire on the couple as both of them tried to avoid getting slashed up.

Six didn't say anything, she aimed Mjolnir at the ground, forcing herself off the ground and grabbing onto a pipe on the ceiling and throwing herself at the green haired girl who only just managed to roll out of the way as Six went in for a crushing attack with her hammer, bringing the weapon down from above her head with the intent of flattening her.

It didn't do what Six intended, but Emerald hadn't moved back that far, she'd simply moved back a few feet and more to the point; hadn't moved of the metal floor segment. With all the force being brought down the panel was ripped free and Emerald got flung off the end, sent up into the air before Ilia's whip lashed out and caught her around her leg she brought her crashing to the ground with a loud crash that reverberated for about a minute.

Not that the minute she spent lying on the ground was enough to keep the green haired girl on the ground, she still stood up again… only to miss the detail that Ilia hadn't freed her whip from around her leg and pulled her over again… and again… and again… and again and again and again.

"Rrraaaggghhhhh!" Emerald screamed as she reignited the blades on her guns and drove it into Ilia's whip, slicing it apart and finally getting to her feet, running at the two of them again screaming.

Six didn't even need to react, Ilia already had a plan; freeing Turak's energy sword from her belt and igniting it, using its considerable reach and a good lunge to impale one of Emerald's guns… and also her hand by the fact she was still holding the gun when Emerald went for the stab.

"Argh!" Emerald gasped as she dropped the melted gun (Which had split in half from having the orange energy sword driven through it) not like her nearly split in half hand could have held anything, she'd actually had to drop her other gun so she could grip her injured hand with her uninjured one. "You bitch!"

Six and Ilia just looked at each other for a few seconds before turning to her.

"Well… I mean…" Ilia began, looking down at the orange energy sword she was holding.

"You were trying to stab her while we were in a fight, what did you expect to happen…" Six began before being cut off by Seven screaming:

"Move!" She screamed as Six and Ilia dived to the side as the injured Emerald lying on the floor disappeared as a very much uninjured Emerald dived into view, igniting both her guns blades and firing on the two of them, both of whom ducked and began to run away from the gunfire… only for both of them to see another Emerald in front of both of them, both of whom grinned and went for a slash.

Both of them rolled back in sync as the Emeralds in front of them grinned as both of them said at the same time:

"Sorry but it's not going to be that easy." As they spoke another Emerald slid out of the side of either of them, grinning as even more began to slide out of the other Emeralds and began to completely fill the room.

"Fuck!" Six yelled as one of the Emerald leapt at her, slashing at her… only to not do anything as the blade passed harmlessly through her. "What the!?"

"Sadly I can't actually hurt you with my clones, but that does beg the question; which one is the real me?" One of the Emeralds asked, her head tilted to the side and grinning manically.

"Is it me?" A random one near Ilia asked, causing the girl to jump into the air and look at the clone.

"Or is it me?" Another one asked with another creepy grin.

"Or is it…" Another one began to ask before Six got sick of Emerald's shit and Swung Mjolnir at a group of the clones, she intended to release a huge blast of dust infused energy to destroy a large chunk of the clones in one swing… Only to learn she had apparently burnt through her entire Dust capacity and her hammer was now only good for smashing things with.

Granted Mjolnir's head was big enough that it would work perfectly fine for that but it also meant she was in a lot more danger of getting stabbed to death while she whittled her way through the clone army. Ilia soon realising what Six was doing began making wide sweeps with her whip to clear the clones out as well, however, soon enough both of them began to encounter the same problem, most notably that the number of clones wasn't really going down… in fact if anything the number seemed to be getting higher. Adding to their fustigation neither of them had been able to find the original and couldn't risk getting hit by any of them in case that one turned out to be the real one and the swords did considerable damage.

Overall this was an endurance match and Six new full well she was on the losing side simply by virtue of Emerald probably not doing anything currently thus conserving her energy while she was forced to burn so much energy just trying to stay alive and eventually she was going to be so low on energy that she was going to be at a severe disadvantage when the fight finally happened…

…Or perhaps If was a better term as the sound of the battle rifles gunfire burst through the room and in a second the clones disappeared as Emerald let out a cry of pain, falling to the floor and cradling her thigh which had a dark patch growing form where Carter had shot her through the leg.

"What were you two doing?" Jorge asked as he walked into the room, looking at the scene below him.

"Couldn't see what she where she was." Six explained simply. "Girl screws with your head… hang on."

Six then proceeded to walk towards Emerald and gave her a good kick in the guts. Knowing the girl couldn't replicate physical experiences she grinned as she felt the soft flesh did into her foot.

"Yup, she's real." Six said happily, turning to walk away before thinking better of it and turning back towards Emerald and kicking her again.

"Six stop that." Carter said firmly as he walked towards the pair.

"Yeah let me have a turn." Emile said with a grin as he drove his armoured foot into her head.

"Emile!" Carter cried indignantly.

"Just disabling her sir." Emile explained as he turned around to look at his leader. "You can't mess with peoples heads if they can't think straight."

"I agree with Emile." Seven said from her place on the podium. "Anyway, I finally got into the system files, should be able to set the slip space drive off soon."

"Good work Seven, lets get ready to leave… Six is that your Vulture?" Carter asked as he looked at the slightly bedraggled looking Vulture floating lopsidedly out of the destroyed bridge window.

"Erm… yeah, sorry about that the guns are kind of a pain." Six explained as she bent down to retrieve Emerald off the ground who looked up at her face and screamed, jumping forwards and pushing her to the ground.

" **I hate you!"** She screamed, pulling her fist back and throwing a dazed fist towards Six's face… A punch Six easily caught, also the other one.

"I fucking hate you!" Emerald yelled, struggling to pull her hands free. "You killed her! You fucking killed her!"

"She was trying to kill all of us." Six responded, gritting her teeth before pulling her head back and smashing her skull into Emeralds, forcing her off her and pinning her to the ground. "What did you think we were going to do?"

"ARGH!" Emerald screamed as she thrashed about. "Shut up!"

"Why Emerald? Why? Give me one good fucking reason why I should do that?" Six responded, staring at the girl hard.

"You killed her! She was everything to me and you killed her!" Emerald yelled. Six's eyes lost all mercy as she looked down at the girl, exasperation turning to loathing as she looked down at the pinned girl.

"I did nothing." Six said, the ice in her voice so heavy that the temperature in the room seemed to drop. "She attacked me and tried to use my power to kill everyone I cared about, everything I went looking for. She maimed me for life, she tore a part of my soul out of my body and it reacted when she tried to force it to do her bidding. She died because she was a fucking idiot and I am forever going to remember that because she practically carved it into my fucking face. So no, I really, truly, could not give less of a shit. Now kindly shut up while we drag you to the vale police department because good god I am so done with your shit."

Six then wrenched the green haired girl to her feet and stomped away, dragging her towards the boarding ramp.

Unfortunately, Emerald didn't appreciate Six not knocking her out when she had the chance and she tried to go for Six again… before she smashed her over the head and sending her crashing to the ground.

"God I hate her." Six said dully before dragging her towards the Vulture, intending to make use of that rope she'd found while clearing it out.

Unfortunately none of them noticed the black sludge crawling into the room behind them, all they could hope for was that Seven would get the drive working before Salem could stop them.


	112. Chapter 112

Chapter 112: Hurry up!

It was Kat who first noticed the sludge creeping into the room, specifically when she trod in it, apparently it fought back and tried to stop her from pulling her foot up.

"Oh no." She said as she looked down at what was keeping her foot stuck to the ground. "Guys!"

"Kat what's…" Carter began before he saw her stuck foot. "Jorge help her out!"

Jorge nodded and moved towards Kat, careful to not put his foot down in the goo himself as it continued to force its way into the room.

"Guys what's taking us so long?" Six asked as she finished tying Emerald up in the Vulture and walked down the ramp, looking into the room and suddenly understanding what was taking so long.

"The fuck is this shit?" Emile asked as he crouched down, pulled out one of his knives and carefully inserted it into the black sludge.

Suddenly the good began to boil around the knifes blade, faster than lighting a jaw ruptured from the goo and tried to crush his arm with it's new teeth, each one keen and ready to tear into its first meal of human flesh…

…Sadly for the Grimm it was unaware what armor was at this point (It's possible to forgive the Grimm for this, it was so new born that it wasn't even fully formed yet) and instead of tearing into healthy chewy human flesh… it bit into solid metal… promptly breaking every single tooth in it's mouth. Then it's skull broke because Emile had jumped to his feet and kicked it in the head.

"I've seen this stuff before!" Penny cried from within Six's power armor. "That Dragon thing was dropping it over the city!"

"Of course we've got more shit to deal with!" Six yelled, throwing her hands back in fustigation. "Why wouldn't we at this point!?"

"Seven how much longer?" Carter asked, turning to the AI who shrugged.

"I don't know! The systems are a mess and… **God dammit!"** Seven suddenly cried, smashing one of the panels in front of her in anger as she looked at the writing which hung in the air in front of her. "That fucking code!"

"What code?" Six asked as she helped Ilia up onto the Vulture (They were loading by order of squishiness and everyone else had power armor)

"The AI who ran this ship seams to have done something to fuck with anyone trying to use it." Seven explained. "She was always better at this stuff, No, no, ARGH!" Seven screamed. "Not again, stop fucking with my bots!"

"Erm, Seven was this AI's name Giran?" Six asked carefully as she jumped back on board the ship.

"Yes, wait how did you know? It's been a while since I mentioned her." Seven asked as Six walked towards one of the consoles.

"She helped me out early… well I think she did. Something flashed up on the screen… 'Code Giran?' I think it said, she helped me open the hanger doors and escape from my armor in the Vulture." Six explained as she looked at the gibberish in front of her.

"I'm sorry, escape from your what?" Emile asked, looking at Six who laughed awkwardly.

"Yeah, Salem kind of weaponised my suit against me." Six said, laughing slightly as she rubbed the back of her head. "I don't want to talk about it."

"As interesting as this is." Carter interrupted (He would admit what Six had been through did sound interesting, it could wait until they were off the ship) "We need to get away from this stuff." He said, pointing towards the goop which was flowing more into the room as Grimm started to pull themselves free.

It was amazing how the sludge just slid of them, it didn't stick to their fur, free and clean the monsters turned to look at them… only to be immediately killed as soon as Noble Team started blasting at them seconds after they were born into the world.

"I think Carters right." Six muttered as she looked at the screen. "Seven can you get around Giran's code?"

"I'm trying to figure it out." Seven explained, looking a bit awkward as she spoke. "But Giran was a more powerful AI than me in the first place and my computer skills aren't as sharp as they used to be given how easy Remnant tech normally is."

"Oh that's great." Emile said dully as he grabbed a new Beowolf around the neck and drove one of his knives into it's skull. "Why isn't this AI helping you? I thought you two were friends."

Seven actually laughed at that.

"Oh god no, hated the stuck up prick, didn't mean I wanted anything bad to happen to her…" Seven commented ss the Screen flashed up with 'Code Giran' again she elected to add: "…Although the more this shit keeps happening the more I do!"

The Code flashed up again on the screen as Seven reached forwards and shock the holographic panel in front of her and screamed.

"Why are you being suck a pain!?"

"Ah, so I see my ship causes problems for everyone on board it, that's nice to know." A voice suddenly said from behind them. Everyone whirled around and gasped at what they saw… except for Six and Penny who had different reactions to the others.

"Is this our Enemy?" Penny asked while Six… well.

"Well I see I'm not the only one who spends to much time inside." Six said dully as she raised an eyebrow at the tall pale woman with the black eyes. "Word of advise lady, get some sun."

"Six… Do you know who that is?" Carter asked as he slowly raised his gun to point the woman, who looked at the gun for about half a second before looking back at Six.

"I think I can guess." Six said as a group of Ursa began to crawl out around her and stood tall at her side.

"Then why are you insulting her?" Carter asked as he took a few steps back to avoid letting the goo cover his feet.

"Well she's going to kill us anyway." Six shrugged as she looked over at Seven (Who sent a 'Working on it' look back at her) "No reason to be polite to someone who's going to kill you anyway, might be a petty victory but it's still a victory."

"You know I respect that level of conviction in a person" Salem commented as she caressed the boneplate on one of the Ursas head. "Wonder if I'll ever find someone like that again?"

"You won't find anyone again after this." Six said dully as she looked at Seven, only to have her heart stop when she saw Salem doing the same thing.

"Ah, yes your mechanical friend." Salem said as she lazily raised her left index finger, blasting out a bolt of black lightning at the AI port which split in half and exploded, Seven's AI chip flying out with half the connector still buried inside it, it was only thanks to Jorge having quick reflexes that she didn't fall into the mouth of a newly created Beowolf.

"Seven did you get it ready?" Carter asked as he took her chip of Jorge and plugged her back into his helmet.

"No, I couldn't get past Giran's firewalls." Seven explained.

"So our plan is sunk?" Six asked, only to not have a response as Salem unleashed one of the Ursa on her and she was forced to roll out of the way to avoid it… a task that would have gone better if there had been any floor to roll onto that wasn't covered in Grimm Sludge… and as it turned out Grimm sludge hurt… a lot.

"Argh fuck!" Six yelled as she looked for somewhere to jump to, eventually settling for jumping up on the control panel and perching there like an purple cat.

Salem appeared to be enjoying watching Six struggle.

"Yes it isn't the most pleasant experience… well for normal humans anyway." Salem commented as the Ursa span around and went to swing it's paw at Six again who was forced to jump away again, messing up her landing on the next console over and slide of it, crashing down into the Grimm sludge and screaming as her already messed up left half landed in the stuff.

Jorge covered Emile who ducked down and yanked Six out of the sludge, hauling her towards the Vultures ramp with one hand so he could throw a knife at an approaching Ursa with the other.

"I don't think so." Salem said as she raised her finger again, a bigger blast of black lightning building up in her hand that she got ready to let loose. That vanity of having the bigger more impressive blast was the main reason Six wasn't reduced to a pile of ash as a result, it gave Carter just enough time to dive in front of the attack as the bolt was let loose.

The effect on his armor was weird, the shield pulsated and spasmed, sparks flying off where the energy was building up as Carter crashed to the ground, the metal in his suit protecting him from the Grimm sludge that had now filled the room.

Emile meanwhile had thrown Six onto the ramp of the Vulture as Ilia ran forward to help her up the ramp.

"Six are you okay!?" Ilia cried as she looked down at the spartan. Six nodded but it wasn't a nod with any conviction behind it. Her left side was screaming in agony and a normal person probably would have passed out from the effort of staying conscious while also dealing with an experience that matched being on fire down half their body. But Six wasn't an ordinary person and she was able to force herself upright again on the ramp.

Her leg was not up for supporting her weight so she had to grab onto an exposed pipe on the ceiling with one of her hands to stay upright.

"Six you need to sit down!" Ilia gasped as Six began to move along the ship.

"Get me to the pilots seat." Six responded as her hand also gave out, only avoiding a broken nose because Ilia was fast enough to catch her before it split. "Come on, this thing is fully loaded with ammo… well I think I used some…"

"I get it." Ilia said with a grin as she settled Six down into the pilot's seat while she took the co pilot's seat. "How do you use the guns?"

"There should be a screen in front of you." Six said, leaning over and pointing at it with her left arm to the screen in front of her. "It should point out targets, once it picks up on Salem touch her with your finger, flick the safety and then open fire."

"Okay." Ilia nodded as Six turned the ship around as best as she could with one arm. "Let's do this"


	113. Chapter 113

Chapter 113: Endgame

Everyone had thought that Turak had been hard to kill, while fighting him everyone had thought no one could possibly have moved faster than him, no one could strike harder and no one could take more damage.

They were wrong.

Seven instantly understood why Salem had been causing the world in general (But especially Ozpin) so much trouble for thousands of years. Most notably, even if you could track her down and get her in the same room you'd still find it nearly impossible to so much as hit her, let alone kill her.

And it wasn't through lack of trying that she was still standing, Emile had thrown most of his knives and the ones that had found their target had simply bounced off. Carter had smashed her around the back of the head with his battle rifle (It was jammed up from him landing in the Grimm goop) To which she had turned around, looked at him boredly and smashed him across the room with one strike to his face with her right arm.

Jorge wasn't sure how many bullets he'd sunk into Salem but she didn't seam bothered by it, her Forerunner energy shield was tanking every single shot Jorge sent her way. Kat was trying to get in close with her energy sword but she kept getting delayed by every single Grimm Salem could pull up, all of which seamed to be prioritising her over any of the others.

Six and Ilia decided to aid them somewhat.

The Vulture descended and aimed at Salem, they then activated every single weapon the Vulture possed, the vertical missile launcher sent weapons into the sky that snaked around under the Vulture and shot back towards Salem while their none vertical Argent V cousins took the straight path, all of them also aimed directly at the Queen of Grimm.

Then there was the Autocannons, the four, thirty Millimetre autocannons. Every shot of which was aimed at Salem.

The problem was the ship was breaking faster than Salem was, no matter what they threw at her it just wasn't breaching her shields, the fire was erupting around her and the metal was buckling, but her shields remained unbroken, taking more and more damage they shouldn't have been able to.

It was after thirty seconds of this bombardment that Six realised something.

 _This isn't going to work._

 _We need to get the Slipspace drive online._

 _How? Seven can't plug in anymore without the port._

 _I know…_

 _Even if she could get in we would still need to convince Giran's code thinking to let her do her thing…_

 _Yeah, what if… Hang on… That might work._

 _What might work? Koko you're acting stranger than normal._

 _Giran helped up before remember?_

 _What? You mean with the doors?_

 _Yes! She opened them for us!_

 _But why? What made her help us at all? What did she want?_

 _She somehow knew we couldn't read the text… she came to us because we needed help._

 _How did she know though? More to the point how can we tell her again and more to the point why didn't she let Seven do her thing?_

 _I don't know… we need to ask her._

"Seven!" Six yelled, reaching for the ships radio mic and holding it to her mouth. "Seven this is important, what were you trying to do with the slip space drive?"

"Erm, trying to set if off… Six you know this…" Seven began before Six butted in again, her brain finally having made the connection.

"But how were you doing this!" Six cried, the silence from Seven much worse than it should have been. "Seven please I need an answer!"

"I tried to hack in." Seven eventually answered. "Why what's wrong."

"You said Giran was trying to stop you from getting in, what was she actually doing?" Six asked, her heartrate spiking as Seven answered.

"She didn't do anything, I made bots to break through the security code and she sent bots to dismantle them." Seven responded eventually. "Six why is this important?"

"Did she ever do anything? Did you see her? Did you hear her speak?" Six asked, praying for Seven's next answer to match what she was thinking.

"No… now that you mention it… Six do you have a plan?" Seven asked. Six couldn't see her but she was sure her eyes grew and sparkled when she said that.

"We might not be dealing with the entire AI." Six explained. "We might just have a Fragment of her left over in the system."

"A what?" Seven asked, legitimately confused.

"A Fragment." Six explained rapidly. "Subject an AI to enough mental stress, say someone forcing information out of her repeatedly for months and bits of its brain will separate in an effort to protect the whole."

"How is this important?" Seven asked desperately. "It's been over four million years since a forerunner AI did that."

"But it's not impossible for them to Fragment even if it's not very common." Six explained. "But think about it, when Fragments are created they can act in limited capacity."

"So a Fragment broke loose and is trying to stop me from using the slip space drive?" Seven asked. "But why, what would it get from doing that?"

"She helped me because I needed help to defeat Salem, she told me to stop her." Six said, beaming as she explained the situation to Seven. "I needed help and sort of asked for it."

"But why did she stop me then?" Seven asked, sounding slightly hurt. "I mean, I was trying to defeat her…"

"She might not have known that's what you were trying to do." Six explained. "Think about it, you just hacked in and started attacking her bots, Fragment's don't function as full AI's; she might not have realised what you were trying to do and panicked."

"So… I need to ask her for help?" Seven asked, amazed as the simple solution rolled over her. "I… I… How did I not know this?"

"Later, get talking to her." Six said simply as the Vulture ran out of ammo at last.

"…Okay!" Carter yelled as Seven explained what her new plan was to him. "Everyone we need to get off this ship, everyone to the Vulture now!"

"I don't think so!" Salem yelled as she started throwing more black lightning bolts at the retreating Spartans, Jorge took the main defence while Seven began use of the transmitter in Carters helmet, in theory for this plan she didn't need a direct interface to Giran, she just needed to be able to talk, and she could do that over the radio.

As Salem's attacks got more frequent (shortly after Emile and Kat boarded the Vulture) Seven sent her message, to everyone present it sounded like a string of random gibberish passing far to fast for any meaning to be drawn from it. Then again, everyone present didn't need to understand what Seven had sent, the only one who needed to hear it was the Giran fragment.

Emile and Kat leant over and pulled Jorge and Carter onto the Vulture.

"Seven is it working?" Six asked as Carter crashed into the ship.

Seven's answer got drowned out by Penny jumping onto the Vulture, the loud crashing noise being so loud Six couldn't hear the answer.

Still that didn't matter, Six was smart enough to get out of the way of a ship potentially about to enter Slipspace so she moved the ship as fast as she could.

…

Salem was furious, they had gotten away… well for now they had. She smiled to herself, she could stop them and their plans. Salem held her hand up and let the Grimm tentacles burst out of her hands, stretching towards the Vulture. She had enough Grimm at her disposal to pull the ship back, it would be fine, she would…

Suddenly, something appeared in front of her. A very low polygon human female stood in front of her. She was shorter than her and had two very crude pig tales modelled into the back of her head.

"I thought I had dealt with you." Salem said as she raised the hand that wasn't growing Grimm tentacles, intending to shoot another blast of black lightning out at Giran.

But she never got the chance. Suddenly two panels in the ceiling slid back, two gun turrets sliding down and taking aim at Salem; who wasn't concerned because her shields should have been able to stop them.

The problem was, they were Forerunner shields; taken from Giran's ship. It was a shock when the guns started firing on her and the shield turned off, allowing the orange blasts to tear into Salem and bring her crashing to her knees.

"Argh!" She screamed, looking up at the AI fragment as she approached her. "I… Who are you?" She eventually asked.

Giran stood there, the model glowing vibrantly for a few seconds before she said anything, it wasn't an answer to her question, it was more of a statement to Salem. One last declaration against her.

"Captain… Goes… With… Her ship…" She said as her model shattered, bursting into polygons as it collapsed as a giant blue whole opened in the sky in front of the ship.

Salem tried to move, she tried to run away… but she couldn't, before she had a chance to move The Salem's Crusade was stretched across all of space before being spat out the other side of the hole.

It was a strange feeling for Salem, to suddenly have the world she knew and all her power stripped from her, she felt weak (Although that may have been the blood loss coming from the multiple gunshot wounds)

But still, she wasn't dead yet, she would get her power back, she'd get the ship under her control, she'd return and when she did…

"Warning, Slip Space Drive is overloaded." A mechanical voice suddenly said, Salem looked up at all the screens which were blaring warnings at her.

She didn't even get a chance to say or think anything other than some tiny part of her brain realising she was done….

Then she was gone, her ship exploded, far away from Remnant, half the Galaxy away as a matter of fact.

Salem, Mother and Queen of the Grimm; source of so much of the world's pain, was gone.

….

Given half her body was in agony Six personally thought she did a good job of landing the Vulture.

Granted most people didn't associate landing with loud sparks and unearthly amounts of grinding, but again, Six could only use half of her body; so again, she thought she did a good job.

It was strange to walk out and see… well, the aftermath of a fight. Spartans didn't tend to stick around for the recovery efforts. Usually your top priority was to get to the next battle that needed winning as soon as possible. Seeing her actual home destroyed was… kind of sad.

Granted Beacon was okay… the dorms were a bit damaged (Six was sad to see it was her room that had the most damage to it) but the biggest damage was the top of Beacon tower… most of it was completely gone. But her, everyone else seamed okay.

Vale itself was less okay, but Six was more concerned by her home being damaged, her city could wait.

The group walked towards the dorm, intending to get Six some medical attention for her left side.

Unfortunately the universe really hated the group and decided they needed one last 'Fuck you'

While the Salem's Crusade had jumped away quickly, it hadn't quite made it away from Remnant before one thing on board the ship had managed to get off.

Running at them from across the courtyard was a familiar suit of purple armor.

"No…" Six gasped as she saw it approach her, why was her suit still alive? Why hadn't it just died, why was it still around?

"Six what's going on?" Carter asked, looking at his teammate who seamed to have slumped over, leaning on Emile for support.

"The Armor has a Geist Grimm possessing it." Penny explained, having noticed the eye where the visor was supposed to be. "We need to force the Grimm out."

"How do we do that?" Kat asked, looking at Penny in the giant mech suit, who responded by aiming her missile launcher at the Armor before blasting at it.

The armor did not withstand the bombardment. At all. Six had been skipping out on the suits maintenance after she lost the ability to summon it, meaning the shield was weaker than it had been and gave out far to quickly.

"Like that." Penny responded happily as she looked at the scattered armor components, the torn up undersuit and the Geist floating above it. "Now if one of you would like to deal with that Grimm, I appear to be out of ammunition."

Emile didn't say anything, he just freed his original knife from Reach and threw it at the Geist, which screamed in pain as the knife pierced its white faceplate, which promptly disintegrated as the knife fell to the ground.

"Thanks." Six said weekly, grinning before her body finaly gave out, her body finally giving out. Today had been a very long day… and she was just… so tired.


	114. Chapter 114

Chapter 114: Finally, over

Just once Six wanted to pass out and not wake up in a hospital. Granted this time it was a little bit different because she wasn't on a bed, instead she was on futon hastily thrown on the ground because Beacons medical bay was a tad fuller than it was before.

She looked around as she pushed herself up, every bed had at least one occupant inside it and all of them were covered in bandages. The other patients were lying on futons similar to Six's and seemed to be the least injured, with only a few minor bandages and cuts to make them look any different to anyone else.

As she looked around she became aware of the numbness in her left side. Looking down she saw it was no longer coated in the black gunk of the Grimm but the skin that had been in contact was irritated badly, with red marks running down all the contacted areas.

 _Great, more scars for me to show off._

"Considering what you and your team did you should be happy that's all you ended up with." A voice suddenly said from behind Six.

Jolting Six span around and looked up at her Headmaster.

"Ozpin, sir, you startled me." Six said, awkwardly looking at the man as she realised all she had on was a hospital gown.

"Sorry about that." He said quietly as he looked at her. "I just wanted a word, can you stand?"

Six shrugged, her left side felt numb definitely but she could probably stand on it… Or not as she learned when her left leg cried out, forcing Six to grab the Headmaster for support.

"Sorry." She said sheepishly as Locasta approached holding a crutch for her.

"Those are in high demand." Locasta said with a smile as she gave them to the girl. "So make sure you look after it."

"Will do." Six said, nodding as she took the crutch with her left arm and began the process of limping out of the room after the Headmaster (Her arm was more numb than in unusable)

"The first thing I must say Miss Six… is thank you." Ozpin said, his face turned away from her as the two of them walked down the corridor.

"You're welcome sir." Six said as Ozpin stopped, his face still hidden until he stopped and turned around to look at her.

"Six, you don't understand… Salem has been a problem for humanity for millennia, I never managed to stop her… Ever, all the time I've been around on this world I could never stop her; I barely ever managed to find her… I was running out of time to stop her… I… Thank you." He said, turning around and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands.

"…I…" Six wished her brain could think of a better response, but eventually she just smiled. "…I'm a Spartan, doing what no one else could do is kind of the job."

"Even without the armor?" Ozpin asked as the two of them opened a door to the courtyard and walked across the open area. Six noted the blasted segments of stone and scaffolding put up around the dining hall. "Or the discipline?" He added with a grin as Six stared at one of the woman doing maintenance on one of the windows who was suffering from builders butt crack.

Six went red and mumbled:

"I blame Coco."

Seeing a Headmaster snort with laughter is not something Six had ever envisioned seeing.

"Yes, Miss Adel is a tad corrupting." He said simply as they re-entered the main school body, walking towards the exit nearest the dorms.

"She does sometimes make me wonder why she was ever made a team leader." Six admitted, she did like the girl but she was not classic 'leader' material.

"I put her in charge because there was no one better." Ozpin said simply. "Besides if you think she's bad now imagine what she was like before she had a year of leadership under her belt."

Six actively shuddered at that thought.

"Exactly." Ozpin said with a smile. "If you want more details I'd suggest you ask her yourself someday."

"I might." Six said, part of her was genuinely interested in knowing what she was like and the other half was genuinely terrified.

"On your head be it. Anyway I have repairs to oversee so I'll leave you two alone for now." Ozpin said as they exited the school and walked towards the dorms. Six noted the massive gaping hole in the wall of her room was filled with jacks holding the rood up and the people on scaffolding repairing most of the damage. Although one girl who was stuck to the wall caught her attention more.

"Miss Amitola!" Ozpin called as he walked away. "Someone to see you."

Ilia looked around from her point on the wall (Around the third floor filling in cracks), saw who was leaning on a crutch down below her and burst into an enormous smile. Darting down the wall, throwing her tools onto the scaffolding without looking as she jumped off of the wall and ran towards Six, her body going bright pink as she threw herself around Six who staggered back a few steps before managing to get a hold of the ground with her crutches.

"Opps, sorry." Ilia said as her face turned red while her markings stayed pink.

"It's no problem." Six said with a goofy grin as she put her one free arm around Ilia and went into as good a hug and kiss as she could manage while supporting herself with the crutch (The end result looked a bit like action figures making out but neither of them really cared at this point)

"So, tell me." Six said as the two girls broke apart. "How long was I out for this time?"

"Only one day this time." Ilia explained as she lead Six somewhere. "Things have been hectic since you passed out."

"I thought the attack would have been the worse part." Six reasonably pointed out as they moved through the reconstruction work as fast as possible given Six's dodgy leg.

"Oh, it was." Ilia said as they stopped to Cardin and one of his teammates pass by with a large sheet of glass. "But the repair work hasn't been a picnic either, doesn't help that we can't celebrate until the schools intact again."

"Well at least I didn't miss the celebrations." Six commented as they continued towards… where ever Ilia was taking her. "That would have sucked."

"Yeah well on the bright side you managed (for once) to be one of the least injured combatants." Ilia said with a smirk as they approached the dining hall. "Only got some minor injures and your Aura should be able to handle them."

"Oh so does that mean I won't have to worry about even more scarring?" Six asked hopefully, she didn't really care but if she could avoid getting more odd looks than she already did with her face…

"Yup." Ilia said as she pushed the doors to the dining hall open. (A slightly pointless act given the hole next to the door hadn't been fixed yet and it was easily big enough for both of them to fit in) "Turns out that black gunk was sapping your Aura, might be a bit slow coming back but once it has you should be fine again."

"Good." Six said as she limped into the hall. "I do like making you look better by comparison but there is a limit to that."

"Oh come on you're not that bad." Ilia said cheerly.

"Ilia you look good already, add me to the mix and you look like the cutest thing in the universe."

"Oh come…"

"Would you two kindly shut up or get a room?" Emile asked from behind as the two of them span around and looked at him in shock.

"Emile." Jorge said as he walked up to them. "Don't be rude, Six good to see you, I notice you're out of the hospital bed now."

"Technically it was the hospital floor." Six said before smiling again. "But, you know, s'all good. Please tell me I'm the only one who needed to be hospitalised."

"By some miracle yes." Kat said as she approached the group. "Carter needed a lie down but other than that we all managed to get back unharmed."

"It's not completely unheard of for us." Carter interjected as he flicked the side of Kat's head. "Good to see you back on your feet." He added, nodding at Six.

"Back on my foot." Six corrected. "Lefty still isn't working great."

"Details." Carter responded. "Point is your walking around again."

"Yeah that's true." Six said happily. "But what happened? I mean, I passed out after we blew up the ship and I'm a bit unsure of everything else that happened…"

"Well we've only been able to pick up a few details." Jorge explained. "Most of us have been busy keeping things together long enough there's less work for Glynda to fix later"

"But did you find out anything?" Six asked as she sat down on one of the intact benches, rubbing her painful arm. "I mean… there has to have been some stories about what was going on."

"Yup." Emile said simply. "From what we've put together Amber was keeping the school safe, turns out having a magic lady blasting any Grimm that gets near to the place was a major help."

"Okay that I can believe." Six grinned as she rubbed her left foot.

"Yeah, most of the civilians got to shelter in time… Emphasis on most." Jorge added, looking at the ground sadly.

"Okay." Six said, really not wanting to think about what was about that detail. "What about our allies? What happened with them."

"Not much good." Ironwood said, walking over to the group through the open doors.

"What happened?" Six asked, twisting around to look at the General as he approached.

"Adam Taurus and is missing." Ironwood explained as he looked down at Six. "He disappeared just before the battle ended."

"Right." Six nodded before asking: "What about Roman and Neo?"

"Neopolitan is helping salvage the Eternal." Ironwood explained.

"And Roman?" Emile asked.

"Dead according to her." Ironwood said, sounding if anything a little disappointed. "Guess we never did catch him. Oh well, can't say the world in general will be sad to see him gone."

That phrasing struck something with everyone else in the group, Six and Ilia turned to look at them in confusion.

"What am I missing?" Six asked. When no one answered she added: "Guys if you don't tell me I'll just have Fin tell me."

It was the look on everyone's faces when she finished that sentence that made Six suddenly realise what was wrong.

"He, he didn't make it did he." Six said, when Emile forced out a nod Six let her face fall into her hands.

"I, I.. we were all going to make it back…" Six said through the tears.

She sat there a while before she felt two comforting hands on her shoulders, looking she saw the General and Ilia both supporting her, even if Ilia was crying slightly.

"He won't be forgotten." Ironwood said as he reached into his pocket for a small black tile. "We've already planned to add him to the monument." He explained as he activated the tablet, letting rotating model appear out of the tablet.

Six looked at it intently, it appeared to be a large cube surrounded by multicoloured flowerbeds. Each visible face had the logo of one of Remnants kingdoms carved into every side, what stood out to Six however was 'FIN' being carved into the top of the cube.

"Thanks." Six said as she wiped her eyes. "He, he deserves it."

"I know he does." Ironwood responded simply. "It will go in Vale's city centre once it's done… and all the damage has been repaired." He added, remembering all the damage the Grimm and Prometheans had managed to do.

Six nodded, it was good, but something told her the dull ache in her chest wasn't going to go away soon.

"I hate to add to the bad news…" Emile began, looking over at Six and the other members of Noble Team awkwardly.

"Don't tell me you're heading away already." Jorge said, looking at his friend sadly.

Emile did look awkward but he did answer quickly.

"I'm not going instantly, no transport to Menagerie at the moment." Emile explained. "But, I don't want to leave them alone that long, I promised most of the kids that I'd be coming back as soon as I could and I meant it."

Seeing everyone (but especially Six) look down sadly he added. "Hey it's not that bad, I'll come visit, Ozpin has already agreed to let me bring some of the students over here for additional training. You'll still see me."

Six looked up and grinned slightly. "I better."

"Glad to see someone's finally setting a school up over there." Ironwood said. "I would love to help myself… unfortunately Atlas is in to bad a shape to help anyone else at the moment."

"Most of it's political system and infrastructure was blown up a few weeks back." Six muttered, remembering the attack on the Schnee manor/Atlas Dust mines.

"Exactly, still I might know a few old Huntsmen bored with retirement, might be able to convince them to teach a few lessons." Ironwood said with a smile as he looked at Emile. "Might finally be able to stop them from complaining about how bored they are."

"That would be a great help, me and the ODST's might know how to kick ass but we're a bit lacking in anything that's exclusive to Remnant." Emile said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly.

"I'll talk to them about it as soon as I can." Ironwood said before turning to Six again. "One more thing, we recovered this." He said, nodding to the door as two Atlas Troops walked in with a large crate, opening it Six saw the shattered parts of her Mjolnir armor.

"Oh…" Six muttered as she looked at the destroyed suit, it even had another bullet hole in through the visor, after all the effort she'd put into fixing it.

"Do you still want it?" Ironwood asked, noting the look on Six's face as she approached the crate.

"A bit, but I can't use it anymore and I do not want another Geist getting into it." Six said as she picked the helmet up, turning it around in her hands.

"What are you going to do Noble?" Carter asked, looking at Six as she put the helmet down.

"Well… I mean… Salem's gone… I might have… I might be able to…" Six said, unable to finish her sentence.

As she took the steps back and summoned the energy a part of her new she was destined to fail, she sighed as the energy fizzled out again and the armor stayed right where it was. In bits in a crate.

"Six…" Ilia began before Six shook her head.

"I've got an idea." Six said, she couldn't bring the armor to her anymore, it was gone and she couldn't use it anymore.

Part of her thought she should keep it around for parts in case anyone else's Mjolnir broke down… But it was dangerous, leaving one vulnerable like hers was… that was not a good idea. So she had to get rid of it, or at least get it away from Remnant, She let her semblance build, but instead of directing the suit to her, she sent it away, far away, as far as she could. She knew where she wanted to send it. Normally she would put it back on its stand so she could easily summon it again. But this time… no, she needed to get it off Remnant…

And she knew exactly where she wanted to send it.

…

 **Reach Shipyards**

"…Okay, one last sweep of the area and then we need to report back to base." The Commander in charge of the Reach recovery mission said to his squad. "Come on people we're on the clock here!"

Jun nodded as he headed back to check the hill he'd just been searching, so far they hadn't found much on the planet, but personally he attributed that more to them only having been there for two hours.

It had been a quick deployment, Reach was a valuable planet and now they could spare men to go scout out old locations for lost tech and information the UNSC wasn't hanging about. Jun had volunteered, and everyone felt safer with a Spartan around.

Still he hadn't found much, his assigned area was mostly empty outside of Glass structures which might have been pretty if they weren't a by product of the planet being wrecked.

Still as he looked across at the empty field he suddenly saw a flash of Purple light that burst out of the middle of the field.

"What was that?" Jun muttered to himself as he set of towards the flash. As soon as he got near to the source he saw what was in front of him, scratch and battered he looked down at the mess.

"No way." He muttered as he looked at the pieces. Six was on his mind a lot since yesterday, the rational part of his brain called him a moron, she was dead; she was still on Reach when it was glassed, there was no way she'd visited him yesterday… As a mysterious disappearing teen girl who happened to have the same name… Right.

 _There's one way to know for sure._

Bending down he looked inside the purple suit, noting the fractured visor on the discarded head.

 _No body… Have I lost it?_

 _Maybe?_

"Jun sir have you found something?" A nervous private asked over the radio. "We need to move out."

Eventually Jun answered.

"Yes, I knew I recognised her."

…

"Hey, Six come on wake up." Six opened her eyes seeing her room re-enter focus, she'd fallen asleep there a few hours ago… at least the wall was back by now. Looking up Six saw Velvet standing over her. Taking a second Six noticed she was… 'Dolled up?' she was pretty sure that was the phrase. Anyway she was dressed up more than normal, out of her combat outfit and instead wearing a red minidress and very subtle make up.

"Hey." Six said as she pushed herself up, noting her left side hurt a lot less then they had earlier. "I didn't miss anything did I?"

"No." Velvet said simply. "The celebrations being held in a few hours actually, but you know what Coco's like."

"Needs three hours every morning on a normal day?" Six said with a weak grin.

"Yes and of course she insisted I get started at the same time." Velvet said with a smirk. Shaking her head she continued. "Anyway, thought I'd wake you up seeing as everyone else is getting ready."

"Good idea." Six responded, standing up she noticed how her left leg was now extremely stiff, which was miles better than extreme agony. "Though I feel I might bring the mood down, most of my stuffs a bit…" She looked at the burnt pile of clothing in the corner. "…Wrecked."

"I might have a solution to that." Velvet said with a small smile. "Meant to give it to you after the Vital festival… which technically this is."

"Really?" Six asked in confusion.

"Yup." Velvet said happily as Six followed her up the stairs. "Although you have to promise to wear it before I show it to you."

"If you were Coco I wouldn't agree to that… given you chose it… I'm guessing you chose it?" Six suddenly asked with urgency.

"I made it." Velvet responded with a grin as they walked down the corridor.

"Okay then, guess I'll wear it." Six responded as Velvet opened the door. "…Or not…"

"To late you agreed!" Coco said, grabbing Six's arms before she could make a run for it, appearing from behind the doorframe and grinning broadly.

"…Traitors!" Six said yelled as she was dragged into the room by the couple.

…

The party was… to put it lightly, bloody huge. Everyone was out on the streets; hundreds of tables had been brought out onto the streets and piled with food. No one had bothered decorating because most of the Vital Festival decorations were still hung up and were generic enough to pull double duty as a 'Whoo Salem's dead!' part, even if most people didn't even know who Salem was it still counted.

Everyone was as dressed up as they could be (Glynda worked fast with her repair work and given how happy she was most of the damage to people's homes had been fixed easily) and seemed to be trying to have as good a time as possible given the massive amounts of recent trauma they'd suffered. Actually, given the likelihood of Grimm attacks if you got to sad having the best time you could at a party was actually advice given to citizens by the Vale council.

So everyone was dressed up and eating as much as possible while loud music blared out of speakers/slightly drunk bands getting wrecked up on stage.

"I hate you." Six said as she walked alongside Coco and Velvet to the meeting point with team RWBY, JNPR and Noble.

"No you don't." Coco responded happily as she punched Six in the shoulder.

"In my defence the original plan was to make outfits for everyone, so you'd feel more comfortable." Velvet admitted. "But I kinda ran out of time."

"I know." Six said as she looked down at her dress again. Velvet as it turned out, had made the dress Six remembered… with an amazing amount of accuracy for something Six could barley remember.

As per usual the dress was purple with poofy shoulders and a skirt that quite dramatically flared out at the bottom. Add that to the fact it fell almost to the floor and it looked very much like the kind of thing a princess would wear.

Six both liked it and hated it, getting ready for the mockery she was going to get when the rest of her team saw it.

"What I want to know…" Six said, turning to Velvet with a look of confusion on her face. "…Is how the hell you got this thing so accurate? I mean… I described it to you once."

"Oh I helped!" Seven declared, suddenly appearing out of nowhere and causing all three of them to jump into the air.

"Dammit Seven!" Six cried as she felt her heartrate return to normal. "Don't do that."

"Oh come on, what harm could it do?" The AI asked with a grin. The answer came from 498 as he floated around the corner and approached her.

"Well for one thing basically here was involved in one of the biggest battles in this worlds history yesterday, surprises and loud noises like that are not what they need right now." He explained, before adding. "Also please put some clothes on."

Sighing the AI (who had been wearing her usual tricorn, cape and boots) created a new outfit… an extremely large poofy dress with even more insane hair.

"Wow…" Six said as she looked at what Seven was wearing. "Think it's big enough?"

"Eh, if I don't want to get in the way I can't really go past this." Seven said simply. "Also I figured you'd like if someone else stood out more than you given I helped with your dress."

"Okay Seven; One: you're a see through glowing orange, you already stand out, and two: What do you mean you helped with it?" Six asked as Seven shrugged.

"I can read your mind, just did some digging in your memories for the outfit you were on about, looks good on you by the way." Seven said simply before snatching a cupcake of one of the plates and swallowing it whole. "Man that's good."

"Well thanks for that." Six said as the turned the corner and saw the rest of Noble team.

For Six time seemed to freeze. For the other members they just smiled and waved at her.

"Six hey!" Jorge called, standing next to Lucy. "good to see you!"

"Looks good on you." Kat said as they approached.

"Wasn't what I imagined you liking." Emile admitted. "Then again a lot of things you like don't match what I imagined."

"What were you expecting?" Six asked with a goofy girn. "That I was some silent brooding badass in all black or something?"

"Noble as someone who's read your file I can tell you that's exactly what I expected." Carter said, returning with a tray full of drinks. "Though I will admit that looks good on you."

"Yeah, makes me jealous you get to wear it." Ilia said, having snuck up behind Six and put her hands over Six's eyes, grinning as she turned her around.

"In all fairness that's not bad." Six said, looking at the form fitting suit Ilia was wearing. "Where'd you get it?"

"Vel modified one of my old ones." Coco explained. "Now enough of this, I'm at a party and I'm not even slightly plastered yet, better go fix that." She said as she walked off towards the drinks table.

"I better get ready to drag her off when she passes out." Velvet said, smiling as she went to follow her.

"Should we be concerned?" Carter asked, turning to Six who shrugged.

"Vel can handle it." Six shrugged as the song the band was playing changed, causing Ilia to perk up.

"Hey Six…" She said, smiling as she offered a hand to the purple girl. "…Care to dance?"

"You know I'm a terrible dancer right?" Six said with a grin as she took Ilia's outstretched hand.

"Let's find out." Ilia responded as the two girls headed onto the… well not dance floor… area of street everyone was dancing in. Six looked around as they began to spin (as it turned out neither of them really knew how to dance and had decided spinning on the spot was a good trick) taking note of a drunk looking Blake and Yang barrelled pass them, seemingly not caring how got caught underfoot while Weiss lectured Ruby on how to dance properly while the red head tried to stay upright in her heels.

Then there was… whatever the fuck JNPR was doing, did they just practice team dancing? Six didn't know and she didn't care when she caught a glance of Penny (still having her AI chip plugged into the mech suit) doing the robot with a bunch of Atlesian troops.

Overall Six wished the party could have gone on longer (though with the amount she drank it probably could have and she wouldn't have remembered it if it had) but even then during the next morning the happiness hadn't worn off and waking up surrounded by her friends with Ilia wrapped in her arms was enough to make Six smile, happy it was finally over.

…

 **Authors notes: Okay, an epilogue (different one) and this story is finally over… I can't thank anyone who got this far enough and hope you'll stick around for the last chapter.**


	115. Epilouge

Epilogue: After Beacon Year 3

"Ruby wake up!" Weiss hissed, jabbing her girlfriend in the ribs as she once again slumped over and began drooling into her shoulder; the shoulder covered by a very expensive designer dress.

"Wha, what?" Ruby asked quietly as she looked around the room, her eyes unfocused as she looked at Weiss. "Where are we?"

Weiss sighed and only fought off the urge to perform a face palm because she was scared the noise would carry.

"We're at the Opera, you know, the trip we've been planning for months?" Weiss said, gesturing to the elaborately dressed sets and costumes while a singer made a valiant effort to break every single pane of glass in the building.

"Oh, right…" Ruby muttered, sheepishly looking around and blushing.

"The thought occurs…" Kline commented from behind them, smiling softly down at Ruby. "…That maybe Miss Rose's tastes are not suited for the opera house."

Weiss looked at Kline with an annoyed look on her face that didn't quite reach to her eyes as she looked at Kline.

"Oh I could have told her bringing her here was a bad idea from the start." Willow Schnee said with a refined smile as she took a sip from her wine glass. "Something about her never quite screamed 'Highbrow'"

"I also remember you saying you liked her when you first met her." Weiss shot back, smiling as her mother leaned back and shot her a look.

"Yes, of course I do, the fact she hates this and still wants to be with you says a lot." Willow said with a cheerful grin as Kline held the wine glass she'd set down just out of reach (She was a lot better than she used to be but it would not be a good thing if she fell back into her bad habits) "Your Father was perfect… too perfect."

"Well, I mean he is gone now." Ruby pointed out, remembering the media scandal that had erupted when it was revealed the Schnee family had actively refused to help Jacques get out on parole (Actually while the public would never know it, they had in fact done the opposite of that behind the scenes… not that anyone really would have cared if it got out)

"Very true Miss Rose." Kline said with a smile as they quietened down now the loud singing was over.

Weiss sighed, a part of her knew this was going to happen as soon as she proposed the idea. Ruby was all for spending time with Weiss' family and get to know her (hopefully) mother in law, unfortunately Ruby was many things and 'Immature' was still one of them. While better than the dolt she'd met back at the start of her studies at Beacon, her girlfriend was still easily board and despite Weiss' best efforts Ruby continued to remain completely uncultured.

Sure she could look the part when Weiss wanted, her current Red gown was very elegant and high-class and she looked great in it… but she was still wearing flats and had moaned over how restrictive it was (Weiss had done a lot of work to convince her that her taking it off her later would be worth the wait) And if Weiss was completely honest she sometimes agreed with Ruby. She was used to having far more freedom to move around and couldn't help but think Ruby really was missing something without her cape.

Sighing Weiss looked over at Ruby who had slumped over again and had gone back to sleep.

 _Well… at least the dolts not drooling anymore._

Weiss shook her head and returned the lean, she'd probably enjoy the show more with Ruby on her shoulder anyway; Which she did, it was only when the fat lady had sung and Weiss slowly began to shake Ruby awake.

"She will make a fine Schnee one day… not like she could be worse than the last person who married into the family." Willow commented, making Weiss suddenly feel very awkward. "Weiss?" Willow asked, looking at her Daughter.

"Thank you, mother." Weiss said, letting a natural smile onto her face, it was strange to see on the usually stern Schnee and Willow couldn't help but smile herself.

"Now let us go make a scene at the after show party." Willow grinned. "I heard they have acquired some rather splendid wine from the pre Atlas era and I would rather like to try some."

"You enjoy yourself." Weiss said with a smile as Ruby finally came around. "I think Ruby and I should go eat elsewhere."

"You're going to turn down the finest cuisine Atlas has to offer?" Willow said with mock shock as Weiss reached down and retrieved the purse that was made to go with her outfit.

"Given Ruby hated all of it the last time I think we should go somewhere more her speed." Weiss said as Ruby looked around.

"What, no if you want to go I'll, I mean…"Ruby began before Weiss held her hand up.

"To be honest Ruby I hate most of it as well." Weiss said with a grin, watching as Ruby's face lit up; as if the will to live suddenly flowed back into it.

"Oh thank god!" Ruby exclaimed as she snatched her backpack of the ground and threw it over her shoulders. "That food is awful!"

"I quite agree." Weiss nodded as she walked behind Ruby. "But could you give me a lift? I don't want the Press getting a decent picture of us heading to a fast food joint."

"I thought you didn't like me carrying you around indoors?" Ruby asked with a hopeful look on her face.

"What can I say, I'm stupid." Weiss responded as she slipped her heals of, put them in Ruby's backpack and the stepped onto her girlfriends weighting hands, wrapping her arms around her neck and smiling. "Though if you run us into a wall again…"

"That was one time!" Ruby cried before grinning and taking off at fullspeed, the pair laughing like mad women as they disappeared down the corridor. Ruby happy to have her Snow Angel and Weiss happy to have her Dolt, perhaps not the expected choice for an Heiress to go with; but both of them would be dammed before they even began to care.

"There really is no stopping them is there milady." Kline commented as the trail of rose petals disappeared into the distance.

"No, there isn't, and call me Willow for goodness sake." The Schnee matron said with a smile as she looked over at her family butler.

"As you wish." Kline said with a smile as the two of them headed to the party, both fully aware their heads were going to be killing them when they woke up.

…

"So what do you think of him?" Ironwood asked as they re emerged onto the main deck of the latest Generation of aerial Dreadnaught.

"It's a fine ship." Winter said as she looked around at everything, a part of her respecting how every single component looked like it could easily tank anything you threw at it. "I believe it lives up to the original extremely well."

"I'd hope so." The General said. "Otherwise this would have felt like a huge waste of time building it."

"Considering all four major kingdoms had a hand in building it I wouldn't expect anything different." Winter commented as she looked at the Captains chair and put her hand on the top of it.

When the idea of building a ship to fight off aliens would have been seen as ridiculous a few years ago the battle of Beacon had drastically changed things. If an attack like that happened again no one wanted to be caught with their trousers down. So a decision had been made to construct at least a test ship. The name had been seen as a bit weird but given how much of the work had been done in Atlas no one really minded the name they'd chosen.

And now it was done, with the aid of two uncredited tech genius (All official documents only put a series of numbers for whatever reason) the new ship had been built far advanced of anything Remnant had ever seen before, in theory it could operate in space if it had to.

"Yes, still; it needs its Captain assigning." Ironwood explained, smiling as he looked at Winter. "There was a short list and there are some very promising candidates on the list."

"I'd hope so." Winter said as she looked around the bridge, still amazed the ship's main power supply wasn't Dust driven. "This ship is very important."

"Yes, I argued it should have a captain who has on the ground experience with alien attackers." Ironwood said. Winter was probably imagining it but she was sure she saw the General let out the tiniest smirk as he spoke.

"Someone with an impressive track record in command, experience in aerial combat." Ironwood continued, wondering how she wasn't picking up on this. "And someone who stays on track in the middle of combat."

"The person who has all of those traits must be very impressive." Winter said simply. Ironwood couldn't tell if she was messing with him or was genuinely unaware of who he was talking about.

"You are Miss Schnee, I expect you to do a good job as her captain." Ironwood said, smirking at Winters shocked expression.

"I… I'm the Captain?" Winter asked, pointing at herself dumbfounded.

"If you want to be. Personally I would trust no one else to do." Ironwood said with a grin as Winter gaped for a few more seconds before pulling herself together.

"It would be an honour sir." Winter said, saluting happily and settling into the Captain's chair.

"Then I declare you Winter Schnee, Captain of the Dreadnaught FIN." He said with a smile. "The official launch is in a week, be ready."

"I will be sir." Winter said as she stood up again.

…

"Yang…" Blake whined, looking up at the blond as she was dragged through Menagerie, very nearly bumping into every person in the market as she was dragged along the path towards the house that sat at the end of the main street, the very, very large house that Blake knew all too well.

"Blake we've been over this." Yang almost sang as she merrily pulled her girlfriend down the path.

"I, please don't…" Blake muttered. Yang did stop, but also didn't let go of Blakes hand.

"Blake, look at me." Yang said, carefully raising Blakes head to look at her. "You've been running away from them for seven years. Also they forgave you over seven years ago, they want to see you and after…"

Blake went red, pulling her ear down and moving half her bow as she did it.

"Also you don't need that." Yang said, grinning as she snatched the bow of Blakes head.

"Yang give me that back!" Blake yelled as Yang took off down the path, grinning back at her and waving the bow above her head.

"Try and catch me!" Yang called back, groaning Blake took off after her, even using a few Shadow Clones to try and catch up… unfortunately the incredibly athletic blond had to big a head start and was already hammering on the door by the time Blake caught up and snatched the bow out of Yangs hand… unfortunately for her she didn't get it back on her head before the door opened.

"Yes, Hello can I… Blake!" Kali Belladonna cried, pulling her daughter into a bone crushing hug, pinning her arms to her sides and burying her face into her daughter's shoulders.

"Kali who is it?" Ghira Belladonna asked as he followed his wife, stopping a second before joining in the hug.

It was a sweet moment that got… different; when Yang joined in on the hug.

"Ah, you must be Yang…" Ghira muttered as they broke away from there daughter, looking at the blond girl who nodded.

"That's me." Yang declared happily. "You heard of me?"

"Yes dear, that's why he's concerned." Kali said with a joking smile as she gestured for the two girls to come into the house. "Come in I'll make some…"

She trailed off because she noticed what Blake had been trying to hide under her bow… specifically something was wrong with one of her Cat ears… in that it was half destroyed, a torn scratched mess.

"Blake what happened to you!?" Ghira cried as he looked at her daughter, feeling around the ear which pulled back to her head.

"I… I got careless." Blake said, seeing this Yang decided to give the real explanation to what actually happened.

"We got jumped after we thought we'd cleaned out a Grimm nest. If it helps I did blow that Grimm's head off." Yang added as she put an arm around Blakes shoulders, both to support her and to make sure she didn't make a run for it like she was clearly planning to.

"I, thank you for that." Ghira said simply. "Miss Xao Long, could you help my wife with the tea? I'd like to talk to my Daughter."

"You got it!" Yang said happily, shoving Blake towards her dad and jumping to Kali's side. "You two have fun!" She called, heading into the kitchen while Blake looked around at her dad, she wanted to run, she needed to get away.

"Blake… it's been so long." He eventually said, smiling at his daughter who looked down at the ground, the one cat ear she had left falling as he lead her to the front room. "It was good to hear that you made it to Beacon."

"Just graduated." Blake admitted as she stared at the floor.

"That's great news." Ghira said as the two sat down.

The silence was so thick Blake doubted she could have moved even if she wanted she was so stuck in place.

Eventually Blake cracked.

"Why!?" She suddenly cried, causing Ghira to jolt as his daughter cried out. "Why are you forgiving me!? I, I don't understand!? I, how! I… I called you cowards, I… I was awful and… I stuck around in a terrorist organisation against you! Why, why did…?"

"Because we know you." He said simply. "You might have had your off days, what teenager doesn't? You came back and that's what's important."

"I, I…"

"Blake stop being stupid." Yang said, holding the door open. "You do realise I'm going to keep telling you that until you get it right?" She added as Kali brought the tray in.

"Yes…" Blake sighed, smiling as she looked at her family before sighing. "…So… I notice how the town was less crowded than it was before."

"Oh yes, Seven's terraforming efforts have been going wonderfly." Kali said with a smile as she pouted the tea and handed the cups out to everyone.

"I would hope so given how much I have to deal with." 498 said, floating into the room and looking at the scene in front of him. "…Of course I come to visit during a family meeting, why wouldn't I? It's not like we had this meeting planned beforehand is it?" He said, rolling his eye (ergo his entire body)

"498 sorry." Ghira said, looking around awkwardly. "This meeting was unexpected and… I'll get to it in a few minutes."

"Very well…" 498 said as Seven materialised into the room. "…Oh fuck me."

"Hey guys!" Seven declared, back in her tricorn and cape as she looked at Blake and Yang. "Good to see you again! It's been a while."

"We saw each other at graduation." Blake pointed out. "Like, four weeks ago?"

"Too long." Seven said simply. "Anyway sorry to barge in but I need to talk to you about something the scout team found in the desert."

"What did you find?" Ghira asked in confusion as Seven's human model disappeared and replaced itself with a holographic map showing an area of Menageries desert region, specifically an underground area with a large cave showing…

"Are those Dust veins?" Yang asked in shock as she looked at them.

"Yup. But that's not the best bit." Seven said with an enormous smile stretched across her face. "Take a look at this." She said as the map disappeared and came back with a weird lump crystal, approximately four meters square.

"What is that?" Ghira asked. "Some rare variant of Dust?"

"Sort of." Seven said with a grin. "See me and 498 have been doing some research on Dust…"

"I've been doing research." 498 shot back. "You've been vomiting semi useful documents onto my desktop."

"You have a desktop?" Yang asked quietly, causing Blake to giggle slightly.

"Yeah, anyway, point is with advanced satellite scanning we've been putting the top Atlas Scientists to shame." Seven explained simply.

"So what is this crystal then?" Kali asked as Seven's human model returned, her face stuck in a permanent smile as she returned.

"That is a Dust Core, it's where Dust comes from." Seven explained. "I don't quite know how it works…"

"I could tell you." 498 muttered quietly.

"…But what I do know is that Dust Grows from these things, the mine at Atlas had one at these at the bottom of its main shaft, based on the scans I did it must have been absolutely huge given how far up it reached. However, here's the interesting thing about the Dust Cores I found here." Seven said, clearly enjoying putting on the show for them. "There's three of them… and they're huge."

"WHAT!?" Everyone at the table cried, looking at the grinning AI.

"Yup!" Seven grinned. "No where in the world has this much stuff, hell I even found some Gravity dust growing down there, the only reason it hasn't started floating yet is all the other dust on top of it!"

"How did no one find these veins before?" Kali asked in amazement. "I mean, I know your technology is more advanced than ours but, if it was that close to the surface…"

"Ah, that's the thing though." Seven explained happily. "They weren't that close until recently, my terraforming efforts seemed to have stimulated Dust growth at… exponential rates. And could continue to if I maintain the area properly.

"This could help out massively with some of our… problems." Ghira muttered, thinking about the budget which nearly always grew smaller every year. "Although I don't want this island becoming another Schnee Dust mine like the one they had at Atlas, this island is home to many Faunus and I don't want it getting destroyed."

"You're worried about the Global Dust laws aren't you?" 498 said, referring to a tricky bit of legal claptrap that gave the Schnee Dust Company licence to operate wherever dust was found.

"Yes, I know things have improved with it's true heirs in charge rather than… Him." Ghira growled. "But I'm still concerned about some of the loop holes they might try and pull out to screw us over."

"Well don't be." Seven said simply. "They don't own this dust. It's a loophole they missed, the laws entitle them to operate in any of the four Kingdoms with only a portion of the profits to be given to the Kingdom. However, Menagerie isn't counted as a kingdom."

"So…" Kali said, suddenly putting the pieces together.

"So it's yours to control." Seven said with a massive smile. "If you let the Schnee's mine you could control how they distributed everything, which given how short dust supplies have been getting recently could mean a lot of leeway to improve Faunus rights, and something to hold over them if they didn't actually make any changes."

"It wouldn't be an instant solution obviously." 498 pointed out. "But it would be a good start."

"This is big… but…" Ghira looked over at his daughter and her girlfriend (He'd been a tad surprised when Six informed him of this detail, not that he cared but he was surprised) "…it's been so long since…"

"Say no more." Seven said with a grin. "I can keep it a secret for a little while. I mean, still got the Remnants Pride." She pointed out.

"Thank you, now Blake have you seen the school? It's coming along nicely." Kali said. Blake shock her head but still smiled, everything felt right again, she had her family again.

…

"Uuuggghhh!" Jaune groaned as he pulled himself out of the cave they'd just been in. "Why did that Grimm nest have to be so big!?"

"The less Grimm there are in the world the more they try to get together to protect themselves." Pyrrha explained as she helped Jaune up to his feet. "We should expect this with future nests."

"Great." Ren said with a small smile at the look on Jaunes face.

"Oh come guys, large nests are fun!" Nora declared happily, bouncing on her toes and grinning.

"I do not feel that was fun." Penny said, brushing herself of and examining a small tear in her synthetic skin. While her new body was technically stronger than her old one there was no getting around the fact that the skin broke about as easily as actual skin. Repairing it was going to be an enormous pain.

"Still you did make it a lot easier than it could have been." Pyrrha commented.

"Yeah seriously, those swords are incredible." Jaune said with a grin as the team headed back towards the village, determined to have a very good time once they had there payment in hand.

…

"Kapft!" The small boy cried, walking clumsily towards the woman who had just entered the room. Grinning Kat bent down and pulled the toddler up into her arms.

"Hello you." Kat said with smile as she picked the boy up, smiling at the small child as a haggard looking woman ran after him.

"Kat, good to see you." Lucy said with an air of immense relief as she saw who was holding her son. "John what have I told you about running off?"

'John' giggled and pulled back his bear ears, making a mock roar at his mother who shook her head.

"Yeah, that's about what I expected." She said dully before turning back to Kat. "Nice of you to drop by, out of interest where's Carter?"

"Ammo run." Kat explained. "We were planning to drop by anyway so I just went on ahead. Where's Jorge?" She asked, looking around and noting the lack of the seven foot man.

"Him and Dad are fixing up the old truck." Lucy said as she reached over to her counter top and retrieved her 'fitness juice' from the counter, the green gunk was allegedly good for you but Kat had decided not to bother trying it given it made her gag whenever she drank the stuff.

"I notice the lack of pregnancy fat." Kat commented as she detached her robot arm and used it to scratch her back with the artificial limb. Taking a note of the woman's Clearly defined muscles Lucy was sporting.

"Well duh." Lucy said, rolling her eyes. "Like I was going to stay fat."

"That, I can believe." Kat said as they walked towards the garage door as Lucy took Jhon back of her and carried him in.

"Jorge, we've got visitors." Lucy said as Jorge looked around.

"Hello Kat, sorry I can't look around but I'm trying to keep a hold of this." Jorge said while holding up the front end of the Truck as Daniel worked underneath it.

"Why not just use Car Jacks Noble?" Carter asked, having appeared from seemingly nowhere as he looked at the scene in front of them.

"They broke." Ursus explained dully. "And of course buying new ones would be too expensive for this minor job."

"You know I'm right." Daniel called as he pulled himself out from under the car. "Anyway that's done now.

"So guys what have you been up to?" Jorge asked as he turned to his teammates. "heard your latest mission didn't go so well."

"It went wrong in the sense of 'Adam got away'" Carter explained. "However, we did succeed in destroying most of his camp and captured his allies. He'd got to run out of men at some point."

"I wouldn't hold your breath." Lucy said dully. "You're the third group he's gotten away from."

"Details." Carter said simply. "Anyway all the time we're causing him problems is time he can't spend trying to overthrow all of humanity"

"Fair enough, more exciting than my week." Jorge said dully. "Refitting an entire airbus fleet, talk about high drama."

"Hey it's important." Lucy pointed out. "You don't want a bunch of student's plummeting to their deaths on your watch do you?"

"No, no I don't." Jorge admitted.

"Well then don't complain." Lucy said happily. "Besides at least I'm starting this year, might actually see some more of each other if I'm working at Beacon."

"Oh so you did apply?" Kat asked as she refitted her arm.

"Yes I did." Lucy admitted. "And I got accepted, nice to have a job again… even if I do feel like I'm dropping John on Mum and Dad."

"Like I care about getting to spend more time with my Grandkid." Ursus said with a smile. "Whether or not that will continue once the school run starts up I don't know."

"I'm gonna go with no." Lucy said with a grin as she sat down next to Jorge, resting her head on her favourite spot on his shoulder, happy that days like this weren't going away anytime soon.

…

"Okay pair sparing!" Emile yelled as the students collectively groaned, rolling there eyes and lining up against each other on the beach. Technically they did have a new dojo to be doing this sort of thing back at the school, but nothing built experience like sparing on actual sand that could throw you off in stupid ways or with random crap.

Emile watched as everyone fell into line, the usual suspects lining up as he held a fist high.

"3, 2, 1… Begin!" He called, watching as the students disappeared into a flurry of fists and kicks, all of them moving at lightning fast speed that most trained huntsmen couldn't pull off.

"Good to see you're keeping their hand to hand skills up to date." A voice said from behind him. Emile grinned, turning around to look at one of the schools few teachers approaching, specifically the history teacher Professor Kai.

"The amount of huntsmen who fall apart because they lose their weapons is ridiculous." Emile said simply.

"I couldn't agree more, although I can't help but notice that most of the fights are over." Kai pointed out, leaning on his walking stick while pointing at the students, most of whom were standing over a defeated opponent or passed out on the ground (Emile also decided that getting knocked out was a good enough way of showing the students that they needed to improve) "Although not those two."

Emile looked over, suspecting he knew who were the last two fighting because it was always them. Looking over he was proved right as he saw Sam and Angela were still going at each other.

Sweat was pouring down Sam's head as he moved around like crazy, desperately trying to avoid getting hit by Angela, which was harder than with a normal opponent because she had five things to watch out for (Legs, Arms and Snake Tail) and she moved all of them insanely fast.

Granted he did know her main weakness and he was sure it was going to start showing soon and it was, specifically that she was slowing down. Angela was good at many things but a minor flaw with her poison fangs was that it polluted her stamina, it wasn't noticeable and usually she could keep it under control but when her heart rate spiked it got much worse.

Admittedly Sam wasn't entirely sure why this happened to her whenever she fought him, normally she was cool as a cucumber in a fight but when it was him she got…

"Quit moving around!" Angela yelled, actually spitting some of her poison towards Sam who shielded his face with one of his wings before spinning around and sending a right hook her way.

Sam stayed quite, grinning he jumped into the air, his wings beating as he watched Angela scream in frustration, angrily shaking her fists at him while her tail swept around the ground and swore.

"Sam get back in the fight or Angela wins!" Emile called from the sidelines.

"kay." He said with a grin, turning around in the air and sending a joking salute in his direction before turning around in the air, grabbed Angela under her arms and shot up into the air.

"S,s,ssaaaammm!" She blurted, going red as she was pulled in close to the flying boy; so close she wa sure they were.

"I yield!" She screamed, she didn't care, she had to be on the ground, she couldn't deal with this right now, she had to get away from him.

 _Dammit why does he always do this to me!?_

 _Erm… I might have an…_

 _I mean, this is stupid right? We all know this is stupid right!? Fuck!_

… _Never mind…_

"Nice work there Sam!" Tom declared, clapping his friend on the back with his hands, which had gone from having a patch of fur on the back to something closer to a gorilla. Grinning with his razor-sharp teeth as he looked at Angela, who shot him a very sharp 'don't say a fucking word' look as she staggered forwards, grabbing Sam for support and going red again.

Emile sighed as he watched his Students trudge to the dining hall as he looked at the Angela being supported by Sam and wondering if the two would ever work out what was going between the two of them. Smiling he figured it didn't matter, if they did they did and if they didn't they didn't. wasn't his business.

Shrugging Emile followed his students, glad he'd get the afternoon off while Kai taught history then Dab and Warg helped them with mechanics class, he had lots of things he wanted to do and now he might finally get a chance to do most of those things.

 _Maybe this is why the teachers were all so pissed off while training me._

Oh well, he'd started this school and it was awesome, he was never going to not let it be awesome.

…

 _You know if the police ever catch me they're going to piss themselves when they realise I have one of these things._ Neo thought as she passed through the Frisney land gates, having just shown her lifetime pass to the guide and sending him a cheery wave as she walked through.

Neo moved with efficiency, she knew where she wanted to go immediately as she took her favourite short cut over the guard rail, cutting a large chunk of the walk as she landed, knowing the guards were long past caring about her doing stuff like this.

Neo was glad in her change of footwear, heels were not fun to be jumping around in and they also couldn't kick her off the rides because of her footwear. Granted some might question why the soles were to thick but she didn't really care.

Smiling she looked up at the entrance to her favourite ride as the attendant put her up against the height test, grinning when she saw just tall enough to get on, she didn't want to hurt the ride attendant… again.

The wait was always fun for Neo mostly because she loved looking at all the animatronics singing and dancing in a way guaranteed to scare the crap out of any child poor enough to encounter it, the scared eyes brought light to her eyes.

Finally she got on when the talk she'd been expecting came around.

"Miss you're not allowed to wear that hat on the ride, if it can come loose then…" The speckly teen said, pointing to the bowler hat perched on her head. Neo scowled at him, as if she didn't think about this sort of thing.

Neo responded by pulling the hat off of her head and dropping it, watching as the hat plummeted to the ground far to fast for a hat. Neo then bent down and retrieved the hat, flipping it around in her hands and showing the teen the gravity Dust sewn into the underside.

 _This hat doesn't come off._

"Erm… Okay but if you lose it…"

 _Frisney land is not responsible blah blah blah._

Neo settled herself down into her seat on the coasters track, pulling the safety harness down and smiling as she felt Romans hat firmly on her head. While it wasn't quite the same thing as the two of them being here together, it was basically as close as she got and she was fine with that.

…

Jun sighed as he looked up at the monument, it hurt no matter how many times he visited it… but not for the reasons one would suspect if they knew who the tall man in the suit was.

He sighed as he looked up at the statues of his team, all of them were a tad overdone, they all looked a bit to polished and heroic, not quite the same thing as the people he'd know. Not that he really minded, sure if this was a monument to their actual death he might be slightly annoyed, but it wasn't; he knew they weren't.

It was strange, so strange he was keeping it so locked up it would make an ONI coverup look half arsed. But he knew it was true.

While a part of him knew what he'd seen was impossible and was almost certainly just a manic fever dream brought about from over work, a part of him knew what he'd seen and also knew that they were fine… even if he wasn't sure how or why.

He sighed as his phone beeped at him, guess he should get over to Infinity now. He took one last look at the monument.

"Good luck out there guys." He said before walking of towards the waiting ship, turning away from them, hoping they were happy where they were.

…

"I'm really glad those nests are getting less common these days." Velvet muttered, looking down at her torn up jumpsuit.

"if it helps Vel you look sexy like that." Coco said with a smirk as she gave Velvet a sudden slap to her ass, grinning at the blush that spread across the Rabbit girls face. "I dig the wild girl look."

"Thanks." Velvet said as she tried to brush the numerous twigs in her hair free before looking over at Coco. "Though part of me wants to know how you managed to stay so…"

Velvet trailed of as she looked Coco up and down, somehow she'd managed to avoid any damage and still looked like she'd just walked out of the salon. The only thing that looked any different to normal was that she was slightly shorter than usual because she'd had to ditch the heels while trekking through a jungle. Not that it meant much because Coco was still taller than her.

"I'll tell you someday." Coco said as they began the trek back to Mistral. Grimm nests had been getting less and less common ever since the battle over Beacon, not unheard of but still around.

Actually, it was strange, something about the Grimm was… different. They seemed less picky about what they attacked, they'd even been seen eating cows in fields and running from humans. No one had any explanation for what had happened, although the couple had an idea, specifically something to do with a purple haired girl and her team.

"Yeah and what day is that going to be?" Velvet asked as she summoned a machete out of her box and began hacking away at a particularly dense patch of vines.

"Pretty soon." Coco said offhandedly as she watched with amusement as a part of Velvets suit got caught on a thorn, if she kept moving forwards like this her outfit was going to…

 _Rrrrrrriiiiiiiiippp!_

 _Yeeaaahhuuupp! That's about what I expected._

Velvet couldn't help but notice how her full body suit was now sporting a distinct midriff look it hadn't been earlier.

"Nice look their Vel." Coco said with a grin as she got closer. "I'd keep it, looks good on you."

"Coco you automatically think more skin is better." Velvet shot back with a grin as her machete disappeared and she had to summon another one (Six's 'memory card' had really improved her weapon even if she did have to keep re-summoning it)

"No I don't" Coco said a little defensively, she was smarter than that. "I just think it wouldn't kill you to show a little skin, it's not like you've got anything to be afraid of."

"I'm better than I was." Velvet shot back, smiling as Coco nodded.

"At least you don't wear a wetsuit whenever we go swimming anymore." Coco admitted. "But seriously I dig that look on you, it's sexy."

"Coco you'd think I looked Sexy if I wore a frigging sack." Velvet pointed out.

 _Well she'd not wrong._

"Okay you're right there." Coco conceded. "But seriously, you don't need to be ashamed."

"I know…" Velvet sighed, her ears dropping as Coco put her arm around her.

"Come on Vel, let's get back home, got something for you." Coco said, smiling at Velvet who's head tilted to the side.

"Oh, really? What is it?" Velvet asked as Coco giggled.

"If I told you there'd be no surprise." Coco responded, playfully flicking Velvets ear.

 _Though if someone's taken that ring I swear to god I'm going to hurt them so badly…_

…

"Hey you heard the news?" Ilia asked, holding her scroll up to Six who looked over from the cooker to see what was on the screen.

"Why am I not surprised to hear she said yes?" Six asked as she glanced up at the screen, what she had in front of her was destined to go horribly wrong if her concentration slipped for even half a second; she couldn't afford to be distracted for even a second.

"Yeah, set to happen sometime this winter." Ilia said before looking back at Six and adding. "How's it coming along? Should I set us down soon?"

"Erm… yes…" Six muttered, her eyes scanning the recipe book, in theory dinner should be done soon… provided she hadn't done anything wrong.

 _Again_

"Okay, I see a good clearing down below." Ilia said as she grabbed the controls and began to move the ship down towards the ground.

The Vulture Ilia was currently flying was technically the same machine that had saved them two years ago, however that was only in the sense of it was the same shape, power core and control system. Everything else had been refitted to the point it was basically unrecognisable.

The first change had been the engines, they were now infinitely more powerful and let the ship move at a level of speed and accuracy never seen by a Vulture before (or in other words it could actually dodge and survive the occasional firefight)

The next and more significant refit had been the interior. Six was technically well off enough that she could have had a home within a kingdom if she wanted to (Ironwood after learning what she and her team had done had insisted on rewarding all of them significantly) however given how much traveling a Huntress needed to do Six had elected to go with a different solution. She'd converted the Vulture to a mobile home which was why they could be in Atlas today with plans to head to Vale in a couple of days.

Granted it wasn't huge but with some ingenuity they'd been able to fit most of what the needed into the ship. For example the cooking equipment, table and chairs (cushions on the floor) all fitted under the bed which split in two and flipped up out of the way when they wanted to cook. Also their wardrobes were kept in the ceiling compartments because they ran out of other spaces to put them. The two had done their best to make it feel like a home by painting the walls (Ilia had one the colour choice hence why it was a dark red instead of a purple) and they did have to admit that the slightly cramped bedding was nice… even if it meant getting privacy was a bit difficult whenever they had to use the 'bathroom' in the corner.

"Is it weird that so many of us are still together?" Ilia asked as she began the descent to land at the top of the hill (The high ground helped in a fight if one broke out.)

"We went through a battle for the fate of the world." Six said shrugging. "If that doesn't strengthen bonds then I don't know what will" She said as Ilia landed the ship and Six began the delicate process of trying to get her food out of the pan and onto the plates in once piece.

"Shit." She swore as the food inevitably disintegrated and ended up as a messy splat on the plate.

"It'll taste fine." Ilia said with a smile as she got up out of the pilots seat and walked towards her side of the table.

"Ilia you remember I'm the one cooking it right?" Six asked with a week grin.

Ilia smirked, Six's face was just as scarred as it had always been but the smile was cute to her and showed, no matter what anyone thought, that Six was indeed still alive underneath and just as… well silly as she had always been.

"Six your cooking is fine, need I remind you what we just went through!?" Ilia pointed out.

Six had a come back from that.

"You'd be amazed how your standards drop when you're stuck in a woods starving to death for four days." Six pointed out, referring to the Pidgeon's she'd caught and cooked for both of them while tracking a Grimm that had proved to be A: A tricky fucker to track. And B: much bigger than expected.

"Six I grew up on the run with an extremist organisation remember?" Ilia pointed out. "I'm used to far worse."

"I still say I'll have fucked this up somehow." Six said even though she found herself agreeing with Ilia; no matter how bad whatever she made ended up being it could not be worse than the slop she'd eaten during Spartan training.

"Well let's find out." Ilia said, swallowing a forkful of lasagna and sending Six a dirty look. "Six, stop bitching about your cooking, this is great."

Taking a mouthful herself Six agreed. "Noted."

They then ate in quite before Six brought up the elephant in the room.

"Ilia…" Six said slowly as she looked over the table at her girlfriend.

"Yes Six?" She said, looking at the purple haired girl oddly. Something told Six that Ilia knew what she was going to ask.

"You know what day it is tomorrow." Six said slowly.

"Yes I do." Ilia said.

 _Off course I'd know._

"Look, we've got time, if you want to go…" Six began.

"I… I don't know." Ilia said, sighing as she looked down at the ground. "I mean, I've done so much wrong… how could I ever tell them?"

"Easy." Six said simply. "Tell them everything, including everything you did after we got out of the Schnee mansion."

"I, I know I should, it's just… It's been so long and I don't know what to say." Ilia explained, noticing the odd shift in Six as she looked down at the table.

"Well… at least you get a chance to visit them." Six eventually said. "It's not like I can go visit my parents… or ever had the chance to."

Ilia looked at Six, seeing the look in her face before sighing.

"Okay, we'll go tomorrow." Ilia eventually said.

…

For Six it was a strange feeling, not being in a graveyard; Six was used to dead bodies and at least these were buried. It was going to visit someone. Before Noble Team Six never really thought about people she left behind… hell she'd never even met these people.

Still, Ilia had and they'd meant everything to her. It wasn't like Six didn't get why… she'd apparently loved hers enough to go to war over them. Now… What were they going to say?

Six hung back while Ilia walked towards the stone. Apparently, it had been a rush job by the White Fang before they had to leg it from Vale. It reminded Six of the markers she'd made for Noble Team out in the Emerald forest. A large lump of rock with two names crudely carved into its surface.

"Hi Mom, Hi Dad…" Ilia eventually said as she stood in front of the stone. "Sorry it's been a while… I've been busy. It's been a ride, I can't say I've always made the best choices, but I'm okay now, I've got people."

Ilia then proceeded to recount her life since she lost them, From joining the White Fang, going along with them as they went along the darker route, everything up until her scouting mission at the Schnee mansion.

"…Then I met… her. Yeah it may not have gone well with Blake but I did find someone. It was… well it felt like it was right out of a fairy tale. I had my back to the wall a gun to my head and about to die, then she comes running in. My hero in purple charging in to help me, no reason why. She didn't even know me at the time, just saw a girl who needed saving and ran in to help. To repay her I took her to where she needed to go."

"We… well we didn't really get that far, we had some problems with a guy called Turak, he is; well was; an alien. Yeah, I know it's weird. We worked together to defeat him, didn't work right away but we were able to force him back eventually. Then we got together once she woke up… Yeah she does that a lot."

"Since then… she'd had my back. Always, she fights for me the same way she fights for her oldest friends. She's amazing and… Six could you come over here?"

"Erm… Sure." Six said as she walked forwards, not sure what she was supposed to do here. "Hi Mr and Mrs Amitola, sorry I can't say hello in person."

"She's not the most tactful person." Ilia explained. "But she means well. I'm sorry you can't meet her. I think you would have liked her… I hoped you would have. I know I didn't make the best job of my life before I met her, but she got me back on the right track, even if she didn't know that's what she was doing at the time. She got my life back on track, I'm a Huntress now, we just finished a big raid, a few years back we saved the world… I…"

Tears flowed down Ilia's face as she tried to force the words out, unable to keep looking at the grave.

"…I miss you, so much. I wish you were here, I wish… Sorry." She said, rubbing her eyes free of the tears. "Sorry, I know you wanted me to be happy and I am. Don't get me wrong, I miss you, but I'm happy, I'm doing better. I don't even hide who I am anymore, Six knows and the world knows. I wish you'd gotten to se it, I wish you'd seen a lot of what I've done. But that doesn't matter. I love you guys, always will. I love Six… so… I guess… for now I'll say goodbye." Ilia went to stand up, taking Six's hand and walking away before stopping and adding. "I promise I'll come back, you need to hear about how Six helped save the world naked."

Then they left, neither of them could bare being there much longer. The rest of their lives were waiting for them, all they had to do was keep moving forwards and find it.

So the two set off, hand in hand. Not sure what they'd find or do now. But what they did know was this: They couldn't wait to find out.

The End.

…

 **Authors notes: I, I have a lot of things I could say here. But ultimately I only have one thing to say. Thank you for reading. From those who've been here from the start to those reading after I finish updating the story. Thank you.**

 **It's funny, I've been writing this for 222 days. That's over seven months and it's been a blast. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it. You have no idea how much it means that I finished this and that other people enjoyed it.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


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